“How do you know who you are, if you don’t understand where you come from?” Nora Krug asks in “ Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home.” This question is at the heart of this beautifully illustrated and heart-rending graphic memoir. The impact is far more visceral, intelligent and long-lasting, and leaves the reader with a far deeper and more troubled reflection on the intersection of past and present.Nora Krug, Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home. Unlike works like last year's over-hyped Sabrina, which try to say clever things about the present through a sort of detached irony, Krug grabs the reader with both hands and bares her soul. Krug achieves both these things through the intense subjectivity of her approach. On the other hand, it generates a complex reckoning with the present, and with the question of historical responsibility and accountability. On the one hand it produces a heart-wrenching sadness at the plight of the Europeans – Jewish and non-Jewish alike - whose lives were twisted and destroyed by fascism. Further to her credit, Krug's technique of spanning multiple generations allows her a usefully broad vantage. Krug's inquiry is relentless, and driven by a profound sense of mission. In a remarkable series of panels, depicts the various alternate choices he could have made in response to the difficult challenge he faced. Krug writes about mending and reparations, but she doesn't let herself-or readers-lapse into complacence. Krug balances this terrible history with bucolic scenes of the German countryside, and a running feature titled 'From the notebook of a homesick émigré,' which flags iconic practical and comforting German items that she misses, but can only go so far to salve wounds. But it's endlessly absorbing, and you wouldn't want to read this book in the dark anyway: Stark reminders of Nazism's brutality are haunting. There's a lot to take in, and with its scrapbook abundance, the book can be visually challenging-particularly when Krug deliberately fades her lettering to express hollowed out feelings.

Her uncle's school essays, which are filled with ugly anti-Semitic propaganda, are disturbing, as are flea market finds like Hitler Youth toys that include a nasty caricature of a Jew. It is richly illustrated with cartoons, family photographs and letters, handwritten text, and archival German documents annotated in English by Krug. Belonging is both emotionally and graphically complex.

In its searching honesty and multi-layered, visual and verbal storytelling, it packs the power of Alison Bechdel's Fun Home and David Small's Stitches. Pick up Nora Krug's reverberant graphic memoir, Belonging, and be prepared to lose yourself for hours.

Belonging by nora krug