“Roughneck”

Jeff Lemire’s “Roughneck,” his first written/illustrated long form work since “Trillium” in 2014, feels like Lemire returning to his roots, while breaking new ground and, of course, making us very, very sad.

Cover by Jeff Lemire

Written, Illustrated, Colored, and Lettered by Jeff Lemire

From the New York Times bestselling author and award-winning creator of Essex County, Secret Path, Descender, and The Underwater Welder comes an all-original graphic novel about a brother and sister who must come together after years apart to face the disturbing history that has cursed their family.

Derek Ouelette’s glory days are behind him. His hockey career ended a decade earlier in a violent incident on ice, and since then he’s been living off his reputation in the remote northern community where he grew up, drinking too much and fighting anyone who crosses him. But he never counts on his long-lost sister, Beth, showing up one day out of the blue, back in town and on the run from an abusive boyfriend. Looking to hide out for a while, the two siblings hunker down in a secluded hunting camp deep in the local woods. It is there that they attempt to find a way to reconnect with each other and the painful secrets of their past…even as Beth’s ex draws closer, threatening to pull both Derek and Beth back into a world of self-destruction that they are fighting tooth and nail to leave behind.

Simultaneously touching and harrowing, Roughneck is a masterwork from New York Times bestselling writer/artist Jeff Lemire—a deeply moving and beautifully illustrated story of family, heritage, and the desire to break the cycle of violence at any cost from one of today’s most acclaimed comic creators.

It almost feels obscene to attempt to write 1000 words about “Roughneck.” The book is so content to let its characters, and its readers, exist in quiet, that it seems like all the words are just going to take away from its tone and beauty. But the quiet is also disarming, and builds tension throughout the book. The quiet is interrupted at times by violence, by ghosts, by heritage, and by family strife, but the quiet never really goes away.

But in what is a funny bit of stereotyping, “Roughneck,” when described in simple terms, almost seems like a joke about what a Canadian graphic novel should be: it takes place in snowy environs, involves hockey, trapping marten, and lots of winter coats. And yet, it also touches on the plight of the First Nations peoples, groups whose treatment breaks that other prominent Canadian sterotype, the one about always being kind and polite. There is very little polite about the historical relationship between white folks and native peoples up north, and, like all of its component parts, is handled with subtlety and nuance here, in ways that may frustrate folks looking for simple answers and platitudes.

“Roughneck” is the story of the Oulette siblings, Derek and Beth, and how their entire lives have been tied to pain and abuse, and how each of them dealt with that reality for the rest of their days. Derek uses his hurt to inflict pain on others, whereas Beth takes her pain inward, and just hurts herself more and more. Each story is tragic in its own right, and part of what makes it so sad is the senselessness of it all. Each scene where the darkness erupts from either sibling has a clear path out; neither ever takes it. Well, at least not until the very end of the book.

Derek made it as a professional hockey player, but lost all of that and now lives above the rink in his hometown in little more than one dingy room. He lost it because of his self proclaimed status as a thug; he became known for his fights on the ice, and he took one too far, which led to the end of his career. Derek’s every action is tinged with intensity – he walks into his local bar and orders the bartender to turn the game up before he’s even sat down. Derek doesn’t have a passive bone in his body anymore, and we’re shown in a flashback his father pushing him to lose that passivity. That is the only scene where we see Derek and his father interacting, but it says everything about their relationship, without saying too much. Again, this is a quiet book.

The flashback we get of Beth and her father is one where she barely interacts with him, and their time together is spent hugging and being happy to see each other. Beth’s memory, however, is her father being a right prick to her mother, and it is through her mother’s pain that we see Beth’s life take shape. As Derek points out later in the book, she wound up with a man very much like her father, despite all the pain her father brought her.

Lemire’s work here is, perhaps, the most spare he’s been in a book since “Essex County,” and the work feels looser and more fluid than that early work. Lemire’s characters typically have extraordinarily expressive eyes and mouths, and so it is interesting that Derek is the character we spend the most time with, as most of the time his eyes are narrowed and his mouth grimacing. He’s a picture of stillness, a man perfectly matched to his surroundings. Lemire also uses repetition of images throughout the book – a water tower, a road, the sign for the local bar – but each time the image reappears, its context changes enough to make the repeated visual mean something. Additionally, each time it gets repeated, it continues to drive home just how small and isolated this community is. This isn’t simply panel filler; it is an essential part of the story.

The stoicism of these characters, in lesser hands, could have presented a dull visual experience. But Lemire takes that spare setting and builds so much tension and history into it that the book reads as anything but boring. The layouts of the book are, too, very conventionally laid out, but Lemire will occasionally add an unexpected touch – portraits inside of block lettering, flashbacks and modern days colliding – which give the book additional depth and make the reading experience anything but rote.

When talking about the flashbacks, it’s a great time to talk about the coloring of the book. Lemire washes the present day in blue; aside from red, which occasionally rears its ugly head, it is more or less the only color in the modern day pieces of the book. In the converse of what just about any other book would do, the flashbacks are vibrantly colored and pop off the page. Many times, flashbacks are treated as dreamlike and float above the fray; here, it is the opposite. It is almost as if the past is the only thing that really makes sense, and the present is what passes by without notice, which only has moments of vibrancy. Most moments in the book seem like they’ve happened a hundred times before. We aren’t witnesses to Beth’s first foray into taking too many pills, or Derek’s first fight. These things happen every day, and so the events run together.

In the pre-release press, there was a lot of talk about the presence of indigenous culture in the book, but Lemire includes it in quiet, subtle ways. There’s not a scene where a character talks about First Nations rights, or where someone, for no reason, throws a slur towards one of the characters with native blood. Instead, we are presented with scenes that are far more commonplace, but often times have characters or situations that are First Nations-related. The Oulette heritage isn’t addressed until almost halfway through the book, and there’s not one cheesy moment of Lemire attempting to preach or turn the book into an afterschool special.

In many ways, Fort Albany, where both Derek and Beth’s mom and Al are from, is presented as a refuge. It represents life outside of the horrors that were inflicted because of their father; a place of purity and hope. In some ways, Al’s trapping cabin is used similarly. It is simple and bare, with no distractions or amenities, but it is what allows Beth to heal – removed, both geographically and spiritually from her father (and her father-like boyfriend).

As soon as she walks back into his life, Derek’s job is to protect his sister, and that’s why he’s stuck out in ‘the bush’ with her. The cabin represents what Beth always wanted – a place where she felt safe, protected by her brother. But, to get to that place, everything else has to fall apart. It’s one of the tragedies of the book: for the Oulettes to be a family again, their lives have to crumble completely.

But there is one really interesting note about all the flashbacks, and even of all the talk of the past in the book. Lemire, with one very clear exception, only hints at what happened to the siblings. Sure, we see a vignette here or there, but Lemire’s gentle touch in this regard does two really effective things: it lets us decide how this all went down, and it reminds us that not all pain is sensational. It appears that Derek and Beth were chipped away at for years, with lots of little moments taking them out of happiness.

Except, of course, for the car accident that took their mother’s life. This event gets illuminated throughout the book, and is spared no detail, compared to the other flashbacks. This was clearly a sea change moment for the entire Oulette family. This set them on their course; there was no going back after this. It places all of the family members in the roles they would play for the rest of their lives: dad is absent, mom is gone, Beth is scared, and Derek is trying to protect her. It’s a horrible, beautiful image of broken people; it is the perfect tableau for the book as a whole.

The book feels haunted in many ways – the presence of a mysterious dog popping up, the spectre of Derek’s career hanging over all he does, Beth’s attempt to escape her present by retreating to a past that has long since died – and the reader feels haunted a bit when the book is over. These are stories that stick with you, that feel real and true, and that will not easily pass away. At the book’s conclusion, it appears that both Derek and Beth, in their ways, have given up the ghosts that were holding them in place, and allowed them each to move on, in very different ways. We likely won’t be so lucky; the stark imagery and haunting story of the Oulette family will remain long after the book returns to the shelf.