Translated Tuesday–Epileptic, by David B.

I didn’t buy the graphic novel Epileptic (Pantheon Press) because it was translated from the original French and I thought, “That will come in useful for a Translated Tuesday post.”  In fact, I didn’t even realize it was translated from another language until I started to notice that all the characters’ names were French and so were the locations. 

I bought it because I love graphic novels, this one had appeared on some “best graphic novel” lists, and the subject–a sibling with incurable epilepsy–spoke to me.   My nephew had epilepsy (happily, he outgrew it, which does happen with certain childhood types) and I remember how terrifying it was to see him suddenly collapse for no reason.  The drugs which controlled it made him a little sleepier, a little out of it.   That’s one of the problems with neurological disorders: almost any medication that helps also brings with it unwanted side effects.  The brain is a delicate and tricky thing.

Even more meaningful to me than my little familial history of epilepsy was that Epileptic is the story of a family struggling with a son’s neurological disorder that can never be cured.  My own son has autism.  I’ve written about it in two books.  He’s doing great and we are, without a doubt, among the lucky ones when it comes to that particular battle.  But it’s there, it’s always been there, and I had a feeling that David B.’s book would have a particular resonance for me because of it.

And it did.  The book tells the story–not always in chronological order–of the author’s childhood and young adulthood, from 1964 when he’s five until the 90’s when he’s working on this novel (and occasionally getting his parents’ not-always-positive feedback on it).  At first his family is a pretty normal French family, three kids–two boys and a girl-leading what seems to be a relatively content middle-class existence. 

Then his older brother has his first epileptic seizure. 

And from then on, his family is on a painful, psychological, medical, geographic and emotional journey that never leads them any closer to a cure.

Like many parents of children with autism, the author’s parents are vulnerable to every passing fad that offers the hope of a cure.  (The idea of brain surgery terrifies them, especially because the surgeons they initially consult treat their son like some kind of experiment, not like a human being.)   They try pretty much every eastern mystic treatment that was popular back in those decades, from macrobiotic diets  (which do seem to help) to seances (which don’t). 

David B’s drawings captures the beauty, hope and insanity of all the spurious and mystical beliefs his parents succomb to in their desperation to help their oldest son.

Meanwhile, the author and his younger sister fall deeper and deeper into the isolation and pain that come from having a sibling who can’t ever fit in or be normal and a family that never settles down, is always searching for something.   Both succomb to depression.

At times the author hates his brother who as a young adult gives up trying to lead a normal life and settles into a sort of angry sense of entitlement, and who shows a repugnant fascination with Hitler and other fascists.   But David B. can never forget his brother, never stop wishing things could be different, never stop caring about what happens to him.   Eventually, he finds an outlet and hope in his artwork.  He changes his name (he chooses “David” because it sounds Jewish and is, in its own way, a response to his brother’s Nazi attraction) and finally finds success and independence. 

But the horror of his brother’s unfulfilled life is always with him.

Epileptic is beautiful, moving, painful, and all too relatable for anyone who’s ever had a family member suffer from a disorder that alters his personality.  I defy you to say it’s “just” a graphic novel.