Brooklyn Dreams 4 (of 4)

Short Review: Psycho-hippy nonsense, with great art.

So, J.M. DeMatteis gets through another pseudo-autobiographical tale (reprinting another scene from Moonshadow) and for the final section, he tries to communicate a moment of revelation, and ends up with platitudes: "people are good and bad" and "God is Love". Not exactly the first time we've heard these sentiments, I'm sure, and the abandonment of more interesting story elements, such as the familial relationships in his home, in favour of the eventual enlightenment of the protagonist, is mildly annoying. We don't care how the protagonist got through the teenage years, J.M.: We've all done the same, in greater or lesser extents.

With the above complaint, of course, is the acknowledgement that the storytelling skills on show are well-polished, and the continual state of change inside the druggie teenager's head are exactly suited to Glenn the narrator with perfect shading, but mostly through his wonderfults of cartoony style, Barr's work excels, and by itself makes this book worthwhile.