Body Music

By Jul Maroh. Published by Arsenal Pulp Press. 

Softcover, 304 pages, Monochrome, 2017.

From the author of Blue Is the Warmest Color: a beautiful, bittersweet graphic novel on the complexities of love.

Jul Maroh's first book, Blue Is the Warmest Color, was a graphic novel phenomenon; it was a New York Times bestseller, and the controversial film adaptation by French director Abdellatif Kechiche won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2013. Maroh's latest book, Body Music, marks her return to the kind of soft, warm palette and impressionistic sensibility that made their debut book so sensational.

Set in the languid, European-like neighbourhoods of Montreal, Body Musicis a beautiful and moving meditation on love and desire as expressed in many different forms--between women, between men, between women and men and gender non-conformists alike, all varying in age and race. In twenty-one separate vignettes, Maroh explores the drama inherent in relationships at different stages: the electricity of initial attraction, the elation of falling in love, the trauma of breaking up, the sweet comfort of a long-standing romance.

Anyone who's ever been in a relationship will see themselves in these intimate stories tinged with raw emotion. Body Music is an exhilarating and passionate graphic novel about what it means to fall in love, and what it means to be alive.

Moving and modern, Body Music is a tribute to the ability of humans to care deeply for one another. -Foreword Reviews

Body Music could be considered Maroh's love letter to the language of comics. Sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes humorous, comics rely on the unspoken words (literally) and the space between bodies to make meaning. Without exception, Body Music is decidedly comfortable with all that is said and unsaid. -Comicsverse

Body Music captivates -- in the way of Strolling or High Maintenance, two of my favourite web series -- through snippets of varied lives. -Montreal Review of Books

Maroh finds beauty in the mundane and layers it with the complex. From the man second-guessing himself on his way to work the morning after a first date with a younger man to the chronically ill wife screaming at her husband, there's something relatable for everyone in this book. Maroh's linework and ink-wash style allow one panel to flow into the next, her use of wordless close-ups give readers a strong sense of intimacy and emotion, and the language is thoughtful and poetic. -Publishers Weekly

Body Music is a tender and soft-edged meditation on unconventional love and sex, and you'd expect no less from the creator of Blue Is the Warmest Color. Julie Maroh returns with a pulsing heat in this new collection of vignettes about romantic encounters that push and break boundaries. -Vulture. com

Julie Maroh's greater powers of physical observation are reflected in the emotional nuance and complexity she crafts throughout Body Music. -Comics Journal

What a treat to see Julie Maroh once again writing about young love! . .. the French artist has a knack for making it crackle . .. Maroh brings fervent lyricism to each situation, vaulting the characters into flights of eloquence. -NPR. org