Description

Blurry by Dash Shaw

Hardcover – New York Review of Books – August 2024 – 477 pages

A warm and quietly inventive new graphic novel about a group of characters whose lives interconnect in subtle, often unseen ways—and the seemingly mundane choices that bring them together or draw them apart.

A man can’t decide between two dress shirts for a wedding.
A woman questions the style of her new glasses.
A teacher considers quitting teaching.
A figure-drawing model considers quitting modeling.
A man drives into a fog bank and is unsure how to get home.

In Blurry, Shaw renders doubts around everyday decisions as startling cliffhangers, presenting us with the kinds of choices that can make a life expand or contract in equal measure. Drawn in clear lines and washes, Shaw captures the humor and anxiety of life in a one-of-a-kind structure that bends back to a thrilling, lyrical finish. Blurry is more evidence that Shaw is one of our greatest contemporary cartoonists.