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The single panel comic: few have made the career of it the way Gary Larson has done with his surrealistic humor series The Far Side. Even fewer have done what Hannah Moskowitz, a 16-year-old sophomore at The Barrie School in Silver Spring, has done, writing an inagural work of fiction due for publication this fall that is based on a single image.

“I’ve seen the comics where there’s an island and a single palm tree in the middle with a couple of people wearing rags and stranded,” she said. “I couldn’t just have a laugh and move on. Instead I started to think to myself ‘What are the dynamics of that situation, of these two people stuck together on this island where there is no space, no privacy?’”

Her book, The Sublime, looks at three people trapped on an island just off the Florida Coast who try to function as a group. It was all written by long hand in a series of notebooks. “I always have a notebook with me and I’ve always liked writing in them, it has sort of always been my hobby.”

Chapters jump around; editing occurs in the margins. Some pages are dog eared and some have corners ripped off. There are also doodles, phone numbers and musings. Moskowitz initially thought she would photocopy her book and place the finished product in stores herself. “That’s when I found this guy on MySpace and things changed from there,” she said. Brad Grochowski, owner of AuthorsBookshop in Baltimore, read her manuscript and passed it on to friends at Cantarabooks.

“I loved the story, and I thought that, at least, they could offer her some feedback,” he said. “Instead, they sent her a contract.” Grochowski said he was struck by a deceiving sense of passivity in the story.  “The protagonist has been given a steady, unexcitable voice despite the incredible things happening to him,” he said. “In some ways, it captures teen indifference. But, more importantly, it forces the reader to care because the protagonist doesn’t.” Imagine someone running from a building screaming that everything they care about is gone. Imagine their panic. The Sublime characters are never panicked, never emotional, despite the circumstances. “You want to grab the characters and shake them up,” he said.

The senior editor at Cantarabooks had a similar reaction to the novel. “It’s my long-held theory that the best books for young adults are those written by young adults,” said senior editor Michael Matheny. “And the story itself seemed to be wonderfully imaginative.” While the wheels are turning on the publishing front there are those close to Hannah who haven’t yet read the book.

“If we want to read it I guess we’ll have to buy our own copy,” said Hannah’s mother. “That’s okay, though, I think any parent would be proud to buy their teenager’s first published book. ”

- Michael Zwelling
June 2007 | Takoma Voice

[PDF copy of Takoma Voice interview here.]

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PDF | 100 Pages | 8.5 x 11 | US$4.95

ISBN 9781933688077

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