“If you want to write, if you want to create…you must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.” - Ray Bradbury

I began media logging last year in a Traveler’s Notebook insert that contained other unrelated lists and reflections. Near year’s end, I’d run out of space. Stories that stir the mind often require considerable room to roam—I’m with Bradbury: you must let them wander and wrestle. To accommodate in 2026, I upgraded to a Hobonichi Weeks that’s devoted entirely to media logging. Here’s a pared-down look at the first three months of the year, which include films, TV, novels, short stories, collections, and short films.

ARRANGEMENTS WERE MADE SO THIS THIS COULD OBTAIN PERMANENT RESIDENCE IN MY MIND

• Deux personnes échangeant de la salive (Two People Exchanging Saliva) | short film

• Sentimental Value | film

• The Picture of Dorian Gray | novel

THEY WOULD RECEIVE A PERSONALIZED, WAX SEALED INVITE TO MY DINNER PARTY

• American Gothic Tales | collection of short stories by various authors from 1771 to 1957

• Orb: On the Movements of the Earth | tv show (anime)

• Carmilla | novella

• A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms | tv show

• Pluribis | tv show

• The Shadow over Innsmouth | novella

• Homeland and Other Stories | collection of short stories by Barbara Kingsolver

• Heated Rivalry | tv show

• The Correspondent | novel

Two People Exchanging Saliva | short film

As a student of the Twilight Zone (1959) and Hitchcock films from an early age, I have a fondness for all things strange and an aspiration for lifelong genre fluency. This particular strange story is told in French and hypnotizes with universal themes of control, intimacy, and consumerism. You could say this one leaves a mark.

Sentimental Value | film

Call me Shirley Jackson, because I love a house-represents-inherited-trauma story. There was a strong gust of “eldest daughters beware, this one BITES” rhetoric when this film released, but, speaking as an eldest daughter, nothing I saw was done for low blow, Oscar-bait tears. This story earned its five stars not only for demonstrating the isolating burden of being an eldest daughter, but also for its careful consideration of all family members, which is a massive balancing act given the two-hour runtime. Hot (lukewarm?) take: This film should’ve won the Oscar for best editing instead of One Battle After Another.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde | novel

Certified classic that went triple platinum in my house from how often I reread bits aloud. Why is it I was subjected to Catcher in the Rye in my eleventh-grade English class when I could’ve experienced this masterpiece? Wilde fans, what should I read next?

Orb: On the Movements of the Earth | tv show

Came for all the talk of star systems, stayed for the divine story structure and historical hat tips. All I ask is you watch this right after reading Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. You’ll thank me later.

Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu | novella

ATTN moviegoers I saw last Christmas at the Nosferatu premiere in dark Victorian gowns: this novella has been waiting for you. Because of its pioneering premise, you go in knowing the twist, yet it by no means underwhelms or underdelivers.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms | tv show

If you’re entitled to compensation for The Winds of Winter erasure disappointment, this is what the best lawyers will advise you settle for. Penultimate “In the Name of the Mother” rivals the thrilling Game of Thrones season six penultimate “Battle of the Bastards” by every measure: cinematography, set design, writing, sound design, and editing.

Pluribis | tv show

Is Vince Gilligan capable of missing? I swigged this one down like it was the world’s best espresso martini perfected by The Hive. For a moment there, it filled my Severance-sized cup. Who’s going to tell these showrunners we want quality slow-burn stories, not slow-burn between-season waits?

Fun tidbit: Gilligan is from Virginia and was both a writer and co-executive producer for The X-Files (the show I push on all my friends with a current 100% success rate—hi <3⁠). Gilligan is responsible for one of the most tense, memorable moments in the series: “Pusher,” from season three, episode seventeen. IYKYK.

Lastly, has a great multi-episode breakdown of Pluribis you should check out:

Filmalysis

Why Pluribus' "Please Carol" Episode Is Genius

NOTE: You can watch the video version of this essay here…

Read more

7 months ago · 9 likes · 3 comments · Tom Kuegler

Heated Rivalry | tv show

There’s nothing I could contribute here that hasn’t already been explored in ’s analysis, which I highly recommend you read.

The Erotics of Equality by Yalda

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans | novel

Between friends and coworkers giving it high marks, finding out Virginia Evans is a fellow JMU grad (duuukes), and being an active member of my local pen pal club, I picked this one up and couldn’t put it down. May we all write more letters and be less Karen to customer service employees.

A rough, subject to change sketch of the spring and summer quarters ahead.

Recommendations are always welcome.

Passing by Nella Larson | novel

This has sat patiently on my TBR list. Hearing guest lecturer Dylan Penningroth mention it during an event at my job last week was enough to push it to the top.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson | novel

A friend met Marilynne during his time at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop and suggested I read this one from her catalog. It’s high time I followed through.

Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler by Susana M. Morris | novel

Had the pleasure of hearing speak on a book panel during last year’s inaugural Petersburg Book Festival. I read the first chapter shortly after but told myself I’d wait to read the rest once I’d read at least one of Butler’s works. Alright, I’m ready, Susana!

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver | novel

I’ve read most, if not all, of Kingsolvers’ short stories. Huge fan. What she’s done for those in the commonwealth we both call home is remarkable.

Tampopo (1985) | film

A member of the pen pal club I’m involved in (hi Colby!) told me I’d adore this film. On the list it goes.

Fruitvale Station | film

Before Ryan Coogler releases his version of X-Files (couldn’t be more excited for this reiteration—Gen Z is not prepared), I’m on a self-imposed quest to watch the work of his I haven’t seen.

Porco Rosso, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, or From Up on Poppy Hill | film

Speaking of full filmography goals, I’m only a handful of films short of completing my Studio Ghibli list. Which of these three should I watch next? If it helps, my top four Ghibli movies are: Whisper of the Heart (underrated!), Princess Mononoke, Howl’s Moving Castle, and Castle in the Sky.

The Wind’s Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin | collection of short stories

Every day I open this app I see someone recommending or quoting Ursula. I got a tiny taste from the American Gothic short story collection by way of Schrödinger’s Cat.

Angel’s Egg (1985) | anime film

Surreal, gothic, hand-drawn anime always lure me in. The trailer reminded me of Bersek and Akira.

When tidying my list of short-form literary favorites, two stories I’d read at opposing seasons last year vied for my attention, each asserting they deserved the gold standard treatment and title. But it’s the start of a new year, and I’m feeling especially generous.

A Rose for Emily was my introduction to William Faulkner late last spring. It left me gobsmacked and without words; I feverishly read it again. And again. To my delight, it continues to retain its allure, even now when picked apart with a knife (my Pilot fountain pen). This short story chronicles Miss Emily Grierson, an aristocratic woman living through a period of change in the fictional southern town of Jefferson. As someone who writes primarily Southern Gothic, I felt idiotic for having shelved Faulkner all these years. To make up for lost time and prep for this piece, I hastily ventured an hour west to the University of Virginia’s special collections room so I could sit face-to-face with the story’s early manuscripts, hoping to glean new details of Emily’s life. Spoiler: I most certainly did.

is another I long stashed away for a rainy day. Turns out, a proper autumnal October evening will do. My mood called for, as it so often does, something completely and unabashedly southern. I finally sought my fellow Virginian’s work after scouring the Virginia Quarterly Review website (support literary magazines, folks). That’s where I found a piece of hers published in 1987. Rose-Johnny. This short story’s title is the namesake of our protagonists’ town interest, a woman who challenges societal standards and befriends a young, impressionable girl. Its sincerity left me reeling.

Both authors usher in a flood of polished, editorial analyses when googled, so in an effort to not contribute clutter, let’s see if we can trace new shadows when holding them to the light at the same time. If I must walk the pretentious plank for suggesting this can be done in a Substack piece, so be it. But I ask you at least hear me out before subjecting Emily, Rose-Johnny, and me to the briny deep.

STRUCTURE

The spoiler-ridden examination of story architecture. A place to pause and read the material if you’ve not done so already.

...and the very old men — some in their brushed Confederate uniforms — on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.

While yes, Emily Grierson is our protagonist in A Rose for Emily, there’s a case to be made that this concept of the past is the piece’s grand overseer. Its chokehold is unwavering in this story, which no doubt also seeks to demonstrate Southern America’s grip on their customs. The more you reread the Grierson story, the more acquainted you become with the fictional town of Jefferson’s stalemate with its own recent past. And what better way for Faulkner to relay this than by using past tense, first-person plural point of view? It reads as a collective gathering of secrets, with the townspeople left dissecting what little of Emily’s life she publicly provided them, stitching together what each knows or once heard. And because we, the readers, aren’t gathering intel in chronological order, we too are perplexed and configuring our own stance on Emily as we devour a small, bereft trail of life.

A Rose for Emily is arranged and unfolds in five parts. Part I begins at Emily’s end. Her funeral provides the Jefferson townspeople, after the decaying and reinventing era, an opportunity inside the house, which at one time thrived. It’s here we also learn of the constructed lie of the house’s taxes being paid off for the remainder of her life, which fuels Emily’s entitlement. It’s her last thread of what once was regarding her and her family’s nobility.

Part II delves more into the aftermath of Emily’s father’s passing. This is where the slipping throughout time becomes quite apparent and deliberate; we go back and forth between the immediate days after the patriarch’s death and the Grierson house beginning to reek. Pity is mentioned outright.

Both our midpoint and “sweetheart,” Homer Barron, arrive at Part III. Interestingly, part III opens in the same fashion as part II, shortly after Mr. Grierson’s death. There’s a spiraling happening within this story structure that’s undeniable. It’s as if the townspeople attribute Emily’s ultimate peculiarity to her losing her father while remaining a single woman (how wicked), so they can’t help themselves but to continually return to the scene that robbed her and the older townsfolk of a patriarch that at one time stood for the old, traditional southern ideals. Her outings with Homer are the only time we see her actively resist “noblesse oblige,” and it’s met with the townspeople taking it upon themselves to send a minister—not even one from her denomination—to, what they believe to be, her aid. In part IV, this triggers far-away family to scurry in and involve themselves. And before we know it, Emily is alone once again and then finally laid to rest in the house that did its best to preserve her and its long outdated sense of superiority.

Part V is revelatory. Its conclusion is haunting enough to make me wish I could rid myself of its memory just to reread it again with fresh eyes. Upon rereads, it’s easier to spot the hints Faulkner gave us of Emily’s necrophilia:

She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body. Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father quickly.

Adopting a chapter-like approach for this short story naturally gives the reader this sense of prioritizing clusters of time rather than a consecutive, chronological outline of life. It reads as disjointed, but this haphazard clustering of time is something we humans tend to do more than we realize when recalling memories. Whether we refer to the past as a generation, a Sunday afternoon, or a year’s worth of taxes, our presentation of the past isn’t arranged as linearly as a doctor’s chart. More often than not, we find ourselves slipping in and out of order or even reinventing so that we might reminisce under warmer lights. By intentionally dividing this story of Emily’s life, it reduces her to those five fragmented parts collected and repackaged by her peers. In doing so, it showcases just how susceptible we all are to mischaracterizing and shapeshifting the past.

Word count isn’t everything, but it’s astonishing to me that A Rose for Emily clocks out at only 3,721. That can’t be, I first thought. We impose on Emily’s life for years—four decades, to be exact—and somehow, the story finds its conclusion after a mere four page turns. This speaks to Faulkner’s mastery of both nonlinear stories and expansive sentences. And by expansive, I don’t necessarily mean lengthy. No no, I mean sentences dripping with subtext and subtleties, sentences that have the reader pouring theoretical concrete (lime in this case?) over gaps before they realize they’re even clutching a bucket.

Some examples:

So she vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years before about the smell.

Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist minister--Miss Emily’s people were Episcopal-- to call upon her. He would never divulge what happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again.

Through traditional first-person, Rose-Johnny keeps the reader close to the hip of ten-year-old Georgeann, who, upon finally meeting Rose-Johnny, can’t help but find her completely and utterly human. The strange tales that proliferated throughout Walnut Knobs appear unsubstantiated once little Georgeann constructs a lie that enables her to work at Lester Wall’s store, granting her closeness to her town’s curiosity.

This is a coming-of-age short story written in 7,598 words, making it nearly double the length of A Rose for Emily. I find it delivers in traditional three-act story structure, albeit on a smaller scale. Act one consists of our introduction into Georgeann’s lifestyle. We learn of her relationship with her older sister, Mary Etta, through a few recollections, ones where she’s being picked on or receiving something passed down.

She was five years older, and as a consequence there was hardly an achievement in my life, nor even an article of clothing, that had not first been Mary Etta’s.

What breaks the secondhand pattern Georgeann’s accustomed to is her first encounter with Rose-Johnny; something, miraculously, she’d managed to do before Mary Etta.

The first plot point, which enters the reader into act two, is when Georgeann tells a lie so that she can begin her visits with Rose-Johnny. As she tells it, “It was the first important lie I had told in my life, and I was thrilled with its power.” The act progresses, and we learn more about Rose-Johnny and her competency and grace managing the store alongside a man who Georgeann believes is her father. In my opinion, the midpoint arrives when the sickness Georgeann convinces her family Rose-Johnny has actually materializes. We see Georgeann wrestle with guilt. I find it fascinating that Georgeann goes from untangling a lie (that Rose-Johnny is no half-human spectacle) to telling a lie of her own. The power of a lie is repeatedly explored in this short story.

She laughed a hissing laugh like a boy, and she had the same look the yearling calves get when they are cornered and jump the corral and run to the woods and won’t be butchered. I understood then that Rose-Johnny, too, knew the power of a lie.

Plot point two, which hurls us into the third act, I determined to be when Georgeann and one of the Mattox boys get into a brutal physical fight at school. Georgeann was defending Rose-Johnny, saying repeatedly that she loves her. Shortly after, Rose-Johnny gets worse. The story’s climax happens when Rose-Johnny finally tells Georgeann of her past, a story with layers upon layers of tragedy. And it’s the last time Georgeann sees Rose-Johnny, though she tells herself she and Pa moved up to the Blue Ridge.

The final story beat, the dénouement, is Mary Etta’s attack. Georgeann knows this violence was intended for her, not her sister, and tells her so. Though no one believes her.

Imagine for a moment you’ve contorted both short stories to take on the others’ structure: Rose-Johnny relegated to always remain more than an arm’s length away, an elusive corner curiosity depicted by a group, and Emily Grierson observed up close, perhaps from the eyes of one of her young china painting students. Picture your introductory paragraph depicting the days after Rose-Johnny’s death, with the Walnut Knobs people congregating around the storefront to exchange aforementioned tall tales. This exercise is quite upending, isn’t it? It makes a mess of things, but in the chaos, both authors’ intent becomes clear.

While both can be viewed as humanizing stories of women occupying space in the American South, Rose-Johnny’s demystifying arrives as a result of a young girl’s disillusionment with her town’s prejudice, whereas Emily Grierson’s arrives after her death, from a farther-away viewpoint that asks the reader to take into account all they’ve heard of Emily and assess the scene for themselves. When Rose-Johnny passes, we know her harrowing story as supplied by her own words. Emily Grierson’s story will never be as omniscient because the few granted closeness to her (be it Tobe, her father, or Homer) weren’t telling the story. By limiting our access to Emily’s innermost thoughts, intentions, and desires, she remains part myth, part product of her time. She is subservient to the grander theme of Faulkner’s story, which is to depict a South not only reconciling with post-Civil War adaptations but also how they should treat their past. This was made clearer to me after reading Rose-Johnny, because Kingsolver constructed her story to be less committed to time period and more as a coming-of-age tale. There are moments where dates and specific years are mentioned, yes, but Rose-Johnny reads considerably less devoted to a specific era than A Rose for Emily.

We aren’t given specifics of the time period until 753 words into Rose-Johnny, where we learn of Aunt Minnie’s new 1951 Dodge (appearing roughly 10% of the way through the story). In A Rose for Emily, “style of the seventies” is mentioned 116 words in (3.1% of the way through the story), and “1894” at the 201 mark (5.4%). The gravitas given to the time period in the opening paragraphs of A Rose for Emily alone concedes this argument.

Rose-Johnny is also far more concerned with addressing prejudice head-on than A Rose for Emily. There are moments that ask the reader to think of someone they’ve known in their own lived experiences who’s faced such blatant disregard, and I believe that to be due to the closeness we’re granted to Rose-Johnny.

Lastly on the comparative front, I can’t help but relay the loss of momentum that happens to Rose-Johnny when interrupted with the five structural breaks we see in A Rose for Emily. Dividing Kingsolver’s story adds no conceivable flair, intrigue, or layers, because this period in Georgeann’s life is a small window, demonstrating the impact one person is capable of making within such a small frame. To chop the narrative up would render the same effect as watching an impactful monologue in chunks rather than in one fell swoop. The marvel is found in the containment.

PURSUIT

Tracing the story’s origins and the path that shaped it.

You can imagine my surprise when, sitting in the quiet UVA special collections room1, craning my neck over a typed manuscript of A Rose for Emily dated 1/20/30 (three months prior to its eventual publication in The Forum), I began reading words that were not part of the story’s curvature I’d come to memorize. In this early version’s end, an elongated conversation between Emily and Tobe transpires where the two acknowledge THE room and arrangements after Emily is to die. Additionally, what I found showed not so much as an extra paragraph space break between the five segments we see in the final product. Is this a sliver of how Harper Lee’s attorney, Tonja Carter, felt when stumbling upon the abandoned Go Set a Watchman manuscript? I had to wonder as I sat, gobsmacked once again.

It begs the question: why did Faulkner truncate the third act?

While these additional words are fascinating, their novelty wears off the more you conjoin them when with the original text. This is the closeness I suggested imagining in my earlier section, and how off-putting it would be in a story that shines when provided distance from our protagonist. If I had to guess, that’s why Faulkner was inclined to dispose of it in its final form. I’d love to entertain other theories, if you’ve got them. Of course, it could’ve also been a simple matter of word count, but, then, the question would end up being: why was this the bit he found easiest to part with?

Interestingly, it’s the only time in the story where we hear Emily acknowledge her lack of money. And the little she’s left with (the house) is no longer seen as valuable even to Tobe, whom she’d signed it away to decades earlier. Did she hope he’d tend to the house in her or her family’s honor? Had she hoped he’d maintain her secret or even rid the corpse for her? The exchange raises peculiar questions, but perhaps Faulkner believed they distracted from the story’s larger purpose, especially when our final image of her alive is laughter that reads as spiteful.

It’s worth noting these edits happened after receiving a rejection from Scribner magazine in October of 1929, incidentally when The Sound and the Fury was first published. At this time, none of Faulkner’s short-form work had been published on a broad, national scale, and his three novels prior to A Sound and Fury were by no means wild successes. When evaluating A Rose for Emily in its birth order, you’ll find it arrives after a series of floundering launches, which, for me, only heightens the story’s appeal.

Lastly, in terms of inspiration, Faulkner stated on February 25, 1957, that the story first “came from a picture of the strand of hair on the pillow. It was a ghost story. Simply a picture of a strand of hair on the pillow in the abandoned house.”2

While I don’t have the benefit of old manuscripts to pick apart Barbara Kingsolver’s Rose-Johnny, what I do have is an author whose career has (luckily) coincided with both my timeline and that of the internet. It opens doors of opportunity the UVA special collections department simply can’t offer. I even sent Barbara a letter. While I suspect nothing will come of it, who am I to deny myself the tiny chance of a new Virginia pen pal?

If you had asked me at the start of this review to pinpoint when Barbara penned this short story relative to her other creative writing works, I would’ve placed it somewhere in the middle of the heap. It reads as coming from a confident, seasoned writer. A writer who has tamed their voice and understands the bends of a well-crafted story. Turns out, A Rose for Emily and Rose-Johnny have another thing in common: both were produced in close proximity to their beloved, breakthrough novel, and both were their first foray into the majors of short story publication. Only, for Kingsolver, there was no rejection period with Rose-Johnny.

This is not to suggest it was the first short story she wrote or her first juncture with writing.

The idea of the first short story you submit to a publication getting picked up right away is hard to imagine, especially in today’s literary magazine landscape, but after reading Rose-Johnny, I can see how it was a no-brainer for the VQR. And what momentous timing on their part, even though they had no way of knowing Kingsolver was to publish her debut novel shortly after, titled The Bean Trees. That novel would go on to sell more than 400,000 paperback copies in one year. As VQR summarized in their recent Instagram post about Barbara, “The rest, as they say, is history.”

Given the success both writers experienced around the time in which these two pieces were shared with the masses, it’s safe to say their stories moved people. To be moved is to be convinced. A way to tell if a story has convinced you—indoctrinated you—is if you find yourself picking it apart, looking under the rug, opening every cupboard, and peering behind the couch, in the hopes of finding something you’d not seen before. The more I do this with these two works, the more I find their rooms to be furnished with similar fabrics. The material I believe they’re both cutting from with these two stories is conformity and self-preservation.

Emily Grierson and Rose-Johnny don’t appeal to what their respective southern towns uphold as good and proper for women. They don’t abide. This is the central conflict both women face.

One way they don’t comply is through their physical appearance. Both authors are leaning upon this descriptive tool as a means to construct and, subsequently, dismantle the women via their peers. Kingsolver’s emphasis on Rose-Johnny’s hair is the first and most obvious angle that comes to mind:

Rose-Johnny wore a man’s haircut and terrified little children, although I will never believe that was her intention.

She was not, as we always heard, half-man and half-woman, something akin to the pagan creatures whose naked torsos are inserted in various shocking ways into parts of animal bodies. … And also, there was something not quite womanly in her face, but maybe any woman’s face would look the same with that haircut. I am sure that was what did it, even though her same head of hair, on a man, you wouldn’t look at again: coal black, cut flat across the top of her round head so that when she looked down I could see a faint pale spot right on top where the scalp almost surfaced.

Up until Rose-Johnny tells her horrific story, we are to believe Rose-Johnny’s hair preference is just that: a preference. Later, when we learn the identity of her brother, whom she’s absorbed per her late mother’s wishes, we understand that preference is more insistence, a means of not forgetting. And she will not bend in the face of those who caused harm to her family simply for not conforming to racially motivated societal standards. I think Rose-Johnny also saw what those people did to her mother and put stock into the fact that her hair being cut short helped keep those same men from doing the same to her, as they’d once threatened.

“I’ll tell you what she did. She took her scissors and cut my hair right off, every bit of it. She said, “From now on, I want you to be Rose and Johnny both.” And then she went down to the same hole in the crick where they put baby Johnny in.”

By the story’s end, Georgeann adopts the physical feature that set Rose-Johnny apart from her peers most:

It was during that time that I found my sister’s sewing scissors and cut off all my hair and all of Miss Regina’s. I said that my name was George-Etta, not Georgeann, and I called my doll Rose-Johnny.

Beyond matching Rose-Johnny’s haircut, our protagonist undertakes the naming convention of her beloved friend by combining her and her sister’s names. I found this the most gutting. It’s clear Georgeann feels deeply responsible for her sister’s attack, empathizing even more with Rose-Johnny’s familial story now that she’s lived a lower-stakes version of it herself.

Given that Faulkner’s first conception of Emily Grierson was “simply a picture of a strand of hair on the pillow in the abandoned house,” it’s easy to see where his emphasis on her hair originates from. But I do believe it serves a dual purpose. Beyond setting up the fateful final line in the story, it also continually minimizes and ostracizes her. When her hair is mentioned, it’s primarily noted for features that are not becoming for someone like her, according to the townspeople. She’s either compared to a younger, girlish version of herself or, like Rose-Johnny, a man:

She was sick for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of tragic and serene.

When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like the hair of an active man.

The more I read A Rose for Emily, the more I interpret Emily trimming her hair so short as a means of taking control and doing something outside the circle of what’s customary for Southern women of her time. It doesn’t necessarily read as an important line upon first go, but now I believe it crucial. It’s the first time she’s disregarding a precedent, presumably one set by her father. She finally finds some autonomy after his death. Drastically altering her hair was maybe her first channel to explore this impulse.

The townspeople find the sight sad and worthy of pity. In the three paragraphs after the one about Emily’s short hair, they diagnose her actions in that period of her life as grief-related. While there may be truth in that, I believe it’s possible Faulkner was trying to show her simultaneously testing the limits of this newfound sense of freedom from her father.

PACKAGING

How do the paired visuals conduct themselves in conversation with the story and elevate the narrative?

It’s my understanding Kingsolver’s Rose-Johnny wasn’t accompanied by visual art when published in Virginia Quarterly Review. The story went on to be part of Kingsolver’s Homeland and Other Stories in 1989, a work that bound together several of her short stories in collection format. In it, Rose-Johnny is featured second to last. I find myself wondering what Kingsolver herself pictures when thinking of this story as a standalone, with a cover of its own. Georgeann’s doll, Miss Regina? The store? The Homeland and Other Stories first edition cover consists of an ordinary old house with an isolated, yet beautifully unobstructed view of rural woodlands. While it’s not the house I pictured Georgeann living in, it does offer a general view many southern Americans see regularly.

In my research of her books’ first editions, only one features a person on the cover (Pigs in Heaven), and even then, the individual is small in scale with the rest of the scene. The vast majority are illustrations or still images of nature, which makes sense to me when accounting for her biology background. This excerpt from a 2012 interview with Kingsolver adds more to the reasoning:

Alternatively, A Rose for Emily featured five small illustrations by Weldon Bailey when first published in The Forum. It’s not clever cover art, nor did it undergo any sort of approval process with Faulkner, but it’s something for us to chew on in this final section of the review.

The Grierson house being the first image a reader is provided feels appropriate. And it’s depicted in such an ornately over-the-top way, presumably before modernity stepped foot onto the “select street” it stands upon. And could that be Emily to the right?

Next, we see Tobe with his market basket in hand. Pipe tobacco smoke rises above him. He appears to be looking down, walking with a casual gait, indicating a level of routine in this path he’s taking.

I enjoy the details Bailey honors in his third illustration. We see the portrait of Mr. Grierson on its easel and Emily’s cane. Withholding Emily’s facial details I find an interesting choice. It adds to her mystery, I think.

The reader knows of Emily’s death, so the fourth illustration of her on her deathbed is no shock, but it does help drum up the finale found on the following page. The tall ceilings and sunbeams shown feel exaggerative and theatrical, yes, but I’m more concerned with who was a part of the discovery crew. I’ve always pictured it being a couple men along with Emily’s two female cousins. According to this visual interpretation, it’s perhaps only one of the cousins. I personally love that Faulkner never explicitly says who was there to first find the corpse.

The final image the reader is left with is Emily’s grave in the cemetery mentioned on the first page. No other tombstones are shown, not her father’s, her neighbors, or those who fell in the Battle of Jefferson—it’s a tight, isolated shot on her.

My introduction to began as most do in 2025: staring at a square graphic on an app I consider deleting once a month. Penguin Books posted a striking new graphic novel called The Raven Boys, which is set in my home state and features a concoction of magical realism, romance, and mystery of a Welsh king buried in Virginia soil. I’d be lying if I said the mere mention of ravens doesn’t pique my interest; my status as a Richmonder could become speculative if they didn’t.

I ordered the graphic novel after only consulting the caption. Mind you, I wasn’t a graphic novel enthusiast at the time, nor do I typically gravitate towards YA and romance. That’s how taken I was with the premise. Had I further vetted the piece, I would’ve realized this is an adaptation from a successful novel series Stiefvater released over a decade ago. I wouldn’t tie that piece of context together until the story lay cracked in-hand, but let the record show, it didn’t impede my ability to deeply connect with this reimagined version.

Understanding the way the graphic novel operates in today’s transmedial storytelling atmosphere will only heighten this analysis of The Raven Boys, so bear with me. If you’ve witnessed a video-game-to-TV adaptation or pop-up installation for an album, you know what transmedial means, and sometimes it’s explicitly done from the start, evidenced by literary novels penned with a subsequent theatrical release in mind. Henry Jenkins refers to it as “the technique of telling a single story or story experience across multiple platforms and formats including, but not limited to, games, books, events, cinema, and television. The purpose is not only to reach a wider audience by expanding the target market pool, but to expand the narrative itself.”1

No doubt The Raven Boys graphic novel participates in this transmedial strategy we’re seeing more and more of, but I selected it to undergo this three-part analysis because of its clear ability to stand alone as a piece of compelling narrative.

STRUCTURE

The spoiler-ridden examination of story structure. Skip to Pursuit if you’d rather the spoilers be “safe as life” illusive, or Packaging if you wish to remain as spoiler-free as possible.

Chapter one is make or break. Here are the elements of this particular chapter one that hits the mark and propels the reader forward:

The page one hook: “Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times she’d been told that she would kill her true love. The psychics at 300 Fox Way traded in predictions, and though they were rarely specific, they were always accurate. This was both.” Packed here is our protagonist, her distinctive struggle, and a tease of our setting.

Exposition: We’re immediately told of our protagonist’s fate, which has been reaffirmed several times throughout her life due to her family members being the psychics who reside at 300 Fox Way. Out the gate, we also meet Blue’s estranged Aunt Neeve, and begin gaining an understanding of Blue’s lifestyle.

Protagonist Limits: We learn alongside Aunt Neeve that Blue herself doesn’t possess the psychic ability, but rather acts as an “amplifier” by making other psychics around her hear louder. Employing a character who asks the same questions we the readers have is common but works most effectively when the character is both believable and serves a broader purpose in the narrative. Aunt Neeve checks both those boxes.

Contrast: This same aunt asks Blue about the school she passed on her drive over, and it’s here where we are clued into the fact that it’s a school Blue loathes. It’s where rich boys go. We can assume these are the Raven Boys without it being confirmed outright.

Conflict Set in Motion: The spirits on Corpse Road come out one by one, as expected, until Blue is frightened to see one herself for the first time, who goes by “Gansey.”

Chapter Cliffhanger: “There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Marks Eve. Either you’re his true love, or you killed him.” No notes.

Observations on the story’s overall structure:

1. The first four chapters go back and forth between Blue’s family and the Raven Boys. Given the ensemble cast, this pattern predictability aids the reader in getting acquainted with everyone and distinguishing our various backdrops in Henrietta. What disrupts this back and forth? See #4.

2. The mystery of who this “Gansey” character could be is addressed immediately in chapter two, signaling to the reader his identity isn’t the crux of the plot’s mystery, but rather why and how he is to die within the year. The first panel of chapter two shows a boy who favors the outline of the ghost, and we get confirmation from a friend who speaks his name in conversation.

3. Although a part of the Raven Boys group, Noah is introduced separately. Unlike them, whom we meet in chapter two, we meet Noah in the same chapter as the explanation of Gansey’s peculiar fixation on a dead Welsh king (chapter four). I find it interesting and unmistakably intentional that Noah is tied into this chapter with the talk of spirits and death. His matter-of-fact declaration of being dead for seven years provided a good laugh within an otherwise exposition-heavy chapter.

4. We don’t meet our antagonist until chapter five, and even then, he’s not painted obviously as the foe, but a concerned, albeit nosey, teacher. I recall at this point wondering if he’d be our sole antagonist, or if the story would unravel as an everyone vs. larger scope antagonist (think How To Train Your Dragon when the vikings and dragons must come together to defeat the Red Death).

5. This teacher, Barrington, gets his psychic reading during chapter twelve, when we’re expecting to see Gansey and co. enter 300 Fox Way. This helps fuel the notion that Barrington is one step ahead, and where I began asserting him as the solitary foe, seeing as we’re encroaching on the midpoint.

6. The midpoint doesn’t necessarily need to be at the exact halfway mark. If that were the case for this graphic novel, we’d be evaluating chapter sixteen. But that’s not this story’s true midpoint.

   1. I would argue it arrives shortly after in chapter seventeen, where Blue commits to joining the Raven Boys on their quest and the group converges with the unexplainable for the first time. And this is because, in midpoint fashion, stakes are raised and our pivotal characters undergo a revelation.

      1. This chapter is our third longest in the graphic novel (16 pages), trailing behind our final chapter (33 pages) and chapter fourteen (21 pages). Chapter fourteen does a fabulous job as a setup that promises payoff, as Blue is left with a choice of whether or not to join the boys.

7. The montage sequence in chapter twenty when Blue becomes a genuine and integral part of the Raven Boys group occurring in the same chapter when they experience the seasons in quick succession is brilliant. This pairing reinforces the symbolism of change. I’d be remiss to not use this as an opportunity to point out that the original novel series is called the Raven Cycle.

8. My only critiques of the story structure are found in its conclusion. While indeed, it’s our longest chapter, I closed the book with an unshakable feeling I wasn’t supplied enough information to deem it a perfectly executed bow. With this story teeing up a series, I understand I’m meant to not have all the answers, but we’re rushed to the finish line, or there’s an illusion of urgency due to cramming seven scenes into one chapter. If I’m to provide an amateur armchair suggestion, it’s that a chapter break between the woods and Noah’s funeral would’ve caused less whiplash and provided an opportunity to extend the final scene’s runtime with the crew on Corpse Road. I also believe Chainsaw’s relationship with Ronan suffered from severe underdevelopment, as I’d forgotten her existence by the time Ronan delivers the cliffhanger line to close things out.

PURSUIT

Tracing the story’s origins and the path that shaped it.

While exploring Maggie Stiefvater’s reasons for adapting her story to fit within the expanding graphic novel shelf space, I found this quote from an interview with Reactor:

“As a creator, it was rewarding and exciting to come of age in Young Adult, watching the category change publishing in real time; I feel the same way about Graphic Novels now. I wanted the Raven Cycle to be a part of this, but only if the adaptation seethed with the same intentionality and specificity as the prose novels. Despite the magic, The Raven Boys is all about the gesture, and Sas (illustrator) is simply exceptional at the tiny evidences that prove humanity.”2

The word “specificity” practically yanked me, a choice calling back to the earlier sentiment in this essay that the graphic novel medium provides a uniquely palpable link between the story and storyteller. With this being the second iteration of the story, it provided Stiefvater a canvas (rather than a pen) to translate her world into, granting the ability to prescribe precise colors, background glances, and panel framing devices that build upon existing canon.

Stiefvater’s inspiration for Blue and Gansey’s romantic tension was none other than “The Meeting on the Turret Stairs” painting. Perhaps the dress is what the main character’s name and the theme of death references. For those unfamiliar with the artwork’s lore, it’s based on the medieval Danish ballad “Hellalyle and Hildebrand,” which recounts the tragedy of young lovers, Hellelil, and her guard, Hildebrand. Their love resulted in Hildebrand’s death by one of Hillelil’s brothers at the request of her disapproving father. Irish painter Frederic William Burton chose to illustrate their last lustful exchange, resulting in a still iconic visual companion to the four-line ballad.

Provided that the origin of Blue and Gansey’s dynamic was a famous painting, I can understand why Stiefvater was particular when it came to choosing both an illustrator and adaptor for this project. Sas Milledge and Stephanie Williams, tasked with a tall order, had to appeal to both current and prospective fans. The best way to demonstrate the trio’s success is to break down a few standout panels that relay the complexity and intricate, delicate nature that is the adaptation process. Now’s the time to skip to the packaging segment should you wish to not see anything from the story design.

This panel is magical. What it does without words is so phenomenally subtle I nearly missed it upon first read. The way the illustration is layered, with the top left appearing faded, is confusing at first pass, until it’s pieced together that it’s faded because it’s distinguishing a memory versus the current moment. Once this connection is made, you slowly realize it’s Gansey recalling the last time Ronan snuck out, adding not only clarity, but also crucial backstory. This has to be the graphic novel’s equivalent of the “show, don’t tell” rule so often hurled at literary writers, because this approach is far and beyond more impactful than Gansey outright speaking about this previous incident.

If given the opportunity to interview Maggie, Sas, and Stephanie, one of my pressing questions would be color-theory related. During my second read-through, I noticed how often the color blue is employed to represent death. Gansey’s memory about Ronan uses a hue cut from the same cloth as chapter one’s corpse road ghosts. The only outlier in my theory is when Gansey recounts the memory of his near-fatal bee stings to Blue; the primary palette is more of a green-blue, which I’m left wondering is because either he was spared from death in this moment or because it’s Blue he’s confessing this to, his paralyzing source of love and loss of life. I’d love to know!

Additionally, I couldn’t help noticing the vibrancy of Blue’s home and family, which served as a stark contrast to Barrington, who whenever featured always appeared desaturated, sucking the life out of every frame he’s drawn in.

I adore the layout of this page. The way the fish are like wallpaper in the background is visually stunning in and of itself, and then takes on more significance when their colors change. This notion of the woods producing things based on intention is tricky to understand conceptually, but this panel does a stellar job displaying the idea.

Could this be my favorite panel of them all? Framed in the chaos (of what I’ll refrain from mentioning to keep this as spoiler-free as possible) are our two foreshadowed-from-page-one lovers. The artwork and its arrangement generates similar butterflies as “The Meeting on the Turret Stairs” painting does. We go from Blue, to the two of them in a prophecy-esque moment, to the bottom panel, implying they saw the same vision, which is brilliantly unfolded in this triad design.

PACKAGING

How do the paired visuals conduct themselves in conversation with the story and elevate the narrative?

As stated at the top, the cover design is partially responsible for stopping my scrolling and tossing the book in my virtual cart. The handwritten title typography, a dance of pigments like watercolor in motion, and the five characters’ placement and body language subtleties sold me on the paperback.

I’m still so curious as to why Ronan is the character locking eyes with us, seeing as Blue and Gansey are positioned as our main characters. But there are numerous times in this introductory installment of the series where Ronan’s background is nearly explained, then punted. Undoubtedly, he’ll be a larger focus in the follow up works, especially since he delivers the last line. Noah’s eyeline being just shy of meeting ours, as if to suggest he’s almost present and aware of us, but not, is perfect. Gansey and Blue are exchanging a curious glance, not one that immediately radiates reciprocated love. Given the romantic flair this graphic novel contains, but isn’t solely fixated on, it’s nice to see the full crew featured on the cover instead of our young lovers. While I could see romance publishers vying for that standardized, two-person cover art approach, it would’ve grossly misrepresented the story.

Through researching cover variants, I stumbled upon this UK-exclusive hardcover that features foiled title text mimicking the gold of the Glendower sword and a bright orange spine. Ravishing. Tempting. Someone throw my debit card in the Henrietta woods.

If there’s one thing the marketing lover in me appreciates, it’s clever, story-inspired tangibles that also act as collectables. Fans of the series who were clued into the graphic novel’s release date received their copy with a special bonus of five character cards that strike a similar look to the story’s heavily featured tarot cards. I believe I was one of the lucky last few individuals who were able to place an order through One More Page Books to receive these in my package, which I cherish. Not only do they make stellar bookmarks when I’m without my random receipts and vintage Virginia postcards, but they also perfectly encapsulate our five main characters. The color choices were certainly deliberate, as was the selection of dialogue on the backsides, encouraging you to read them as individual taglines.

In an ideal world, one where the limits of such unnecessarily necessary promotional extravagance bear no financial burden, there would be a reproduction of Gansey’s Glendower research notebook. And it would be produced by Plotter USA or Traveler’s Company, with limited edition stickers, pens, and patches. Better yet, there would be a Henrietta town pop-up in the crest of my Virginia Blue Ridge mountains that invites readers to come experience an installation of Maggie, Sas, and Stephanie’s behind-the-scenes work. If helicopters weren’t such death traps, my imagination would suggest there be Helen-esque rides, perhaps over a Poe Museum-sponsored raven outline. If one of our Raven Boys characters can render realities from dreamscapes, here’s to hoping I can too.