Giant

A polished graphic novel experience. Giant is an enjoyable and recommended example of the medium, a clear example of visual talent and storytelling mastery.

Set in 1930's New York city, Giant follows a group of "Sky Boys" as they build the Rockefeller Center. The job is a dangerous one for obvious reasons, and at the beginning one of the Sky Boys has died. Fellow Irish immigrant, nicknamed Giant, is tasked with writing a letter to the new widow back home in Ireland. However, Giant can't bring himself to tear their family apart so he writes to Mary Ann as her husband and sends her money.

Giant is a quiet man with a rough history that has caused him to be withdrawn. As the story progresses and his letters with Mary Ann continue, Giant comes out of his shell even becoming friends with his fellow Irish Sky Boys. However, Giant can't go on writing as her husband forever...

The art style is amazing here, showing the gritty reality of New York juxtaposed with a rustic Ireland. we get a glimpse into life at the time, with Chaplin films, a change in presidency, and troubles with the Italian mob.

This graphic novel also goes into the Irish War of Independence and the Irish Civil War, and the lasting effects that it had on the people involved.

Giant is an amazing historical fiction graphic novel. It's packed full of real characters whose story of emigration and of their lives in New York City is important and emotional.


Arc provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

4.5 stars

Set in America in the 1930's, during the time of the Great Depression, the story follows the characters that are building the Rockefeller Centre. Before the story even began, there was an opening prose from Jean-Louis Tripp, a cartoonist, about his meeting with Mikaël and how the story was so important to be brought to live and translated from French. I absolutely loved this introduction to the story, as I helped me with my small Great Depression knowledge.

The story follows the lives of Daniel Shackleton and the Giant, another construction worker on the Rockefeller Centre, nicknamed that for his size. It follows Dan's beginning of his career at the Rockefeller Centre, whilst following Giant who has to get in contact with a deceased workers family regarding his death and the last payment from the union. However, Giant doesn't do this, instead he gets himself tied up into a string of lies through communication between Murphy's widowed wife. 

Dan spends majority of the book trying to befriend Giant, but it continuously rebuffed. It isn't until later in the book, where we see Giant slowly come out of his skin and Dan slowly breaks his walls down. Their friendship, if you could call it that, was something i absolutely loved and truly made the novel for me.

I absolutely adored the illustrations and how detailed they were from the detail on the buildings to the character illustrations themselves. The colour scheme used was incredibly fitting in regards to the time period within New York. The illustrations of Giant were phenomenal, especially as he has very few words spoken throughout the book.  

Thank you very much to Papercutz for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review.

I loved this.
I've always been obsessed with NYC so I must admit something : a quick look at the cover page & the summary and i was half-sold already.
This immersion in the lives of the first generation immigrants that litteraly built NYC as we know it was really interesting and i felt that it was very realistic too (the way the sky-workers talk, with the irish accent and all, in particular.) The tenderness Mikael had for his writing subject is obvious.
The subplot consist in a bittersweet story of lost loves and fraternity that will rob your heart.

Side note : I also loved the artworks and the colorization.

More infos and (amazing) photographies on this subject here : https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/11/21/high-rise-workers/

Thanks a lot to Papercutz Editions and NetGalley for this advance copy.

This was a graphic novel with very evocative artwork. Some pages had more colour than others. It is a stark, realistic take on the lives of Irish immigrants who came to work in a growing city that offered them labour in return for fostering dreams of making it big. The skyscrapers of NYC form but a background of the lives of these normal men. They have left family behind, and some of them send support while others use it as an opportunity to be carefree. 

Our focus is on Giant, a man of few words who is tasked with sending important information home to a widow who doesn't know of her fate yet. He does not necessarily do what he intends to and gets embroiled in something he cannot extricate himself from. Through the ensuing conversations, we see all the people around the main character and the small bonds that crop up between the most unlikely of people. There is no completing story arc, at least not in this copy. We are left with an emotional lesson, something that everyone involved is left to contemplate on, and there is no mention of a happily ever after of any sort. There are minor acknowledgements, personal satisfaction of a few workers which made the reading quite unique. It does have some explicit panels, but they were built into the storyline. 

I would recommend this to anyone who likes indulging in a graphic novel as well as anyone who has even a mild interest in historical fiction of the average man.

I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers. The review, however, is entirely based on my own reading experience, my familiarity with the city of New York and my previous brushes with graphic novels.