The Interview

By Manuele Fior. Published by Fantagraphics. 

Hardcover, 176 pages, 2-Colour, 2017. 

In this graphic novel, a psychiatrist’s marriage falls apart, alien spacecraft hover in the sky, and his patient claims she can telepathically communicate with them.

This graphic novel is set in Italy in 2048. Raniero is a fifty-something psychologist whose marriage is failing. In the sky, strange bright triangles appear, bearing mysterious messages from an extraterrestrial civilization. Dora, his young patient, is part of the "New" Convention, a movement of young people preaching free love and alternative models to coupling and family. She declares that her telepathic abilities can parse the signal — a warning of some kind. Initially skeptical, Raniero’s curiosity and attraction grows. The Interview is a science fiction novel that eschews the stars in favor of the delicate, fragile, interior world of human emotion.

"Through his narrative restraint and graphic acuity, Fior makes the experiences of a single man seem as important as the fate of mankind." — Booklist