The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood
The gorgeous cover page of this graphic novel, with the illustration of an artist putting brush to canvas on the dark tangerine background, caught my eye first. I then read the blurb and ordered it immediately.
Billie is a young, lonely, socially anxious artist, estranged from family and living in basic student accommodation. She gets a breakthrough opportunity to exhibit her paintings at a gallery in a few months.
Soon after, an unfortunate incident occurs when she is out seeking inspiration for her exhibition, which leaves her with a detached retina, and she is given the life-altering news that she will be completely blind within the fortnight.
Even though she is understandably shattered upon hearing the news, she decides to go out into the world and paint portraits of ten interesting people for her exhibition. The book is about her journey, meeting people from different walks of life, making her paintings for her debut (and possibly last ever) exhibition while coming to terms with her impending blindness.
My thoughts on the book-
I read it in one sitting. Every single panel is well thought out, and the overall book, right from the cover page, is mostly done in greyscale, with the addition of a few muted colours to indicate different settings. It’s unbelievable that this book was the author’s debut novel. There is well-developed characterization, and each setting that Billie finds herself in is thoughtfully created.
There is an immediate connection with Billie, and we feel all her emotions as she is given the best news of her exhibition and the worst news of her impending blindness in a span of a few days, her internal battles on what her purpose in life is even going to be without art, her interactions with the many people she meets, many of whom are down on their luck in post austerity Britain but who mostly show Billie a lot of kindness and grace.
She realises she is more than her art through her various interactions with people. The story has mostly a predictable fairy tale ending, but the journey makes it worth the ride.
I highly recommend this book, and I have also ordered the next book by this author titled ‘It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth’.
-Anju