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05/12/2005 Archived Entry: "Book review: Salmon Doubts"

Salmon Doubts
By Adam Sacks
Published by Alternative Comics
128 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 1891867717

Reviewed by Tom Good

I dare you to read Salmon Doubts and not be haunted by it a week later. That being said, let me back up and begin from the beginning.

There can be a fine line between minimalism and laziness, and one man's minimalist masterpiece is another's "I could have done that," to which the connoisseur replies, "but you didn't." Well, I didn't create Salmon Doubts; but I wish I had, because like the paper clip or the Post-it note, it is simple yet wonderful.

All this book does is anthropomorphize salmon. But in doing so it boils down all of life's big issues to their essence. Friendship, politics, leadership, loneliness, courtship, love, joy, sadness, disillusionment, and death are all here, presented within the salmon life cycle. Like the story, the artwork is an exercise in restraint, with colors limited to a few blues and grays. A few deft lines give each fish an expressiveness that suggests an interior world. Salmon Doubts is a book that I keep thinking about. Easy to read through quickly, but hard to forget, this one is a keeper.

The Wapshott Press

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