Everything Is Flammable

Much of Bell's work lingers somewhere between confessional diary and emotionally distant philosophical discourse on self and society. Her latest (after The Voyeurs) comes close to tying the two together but, perhaps intentionally, frustrates our best efforts to connect fully. The book begins with the fiery demise of her mother's home in rural California. Bell proceeds to make a logistically complicated trip from Brooklyn out west to help her mother regroup and rebuild. As they spend time together, the women's similarities become increasingly clear: Bell's mother an anxious, aging hippie hoping to reestablish her life in little more than a shack on cinder blocks, Gabrielle tied to her often hermetic day-to-day life in one of the busiest cities in the world. They're both drawn with furrowed brows and unkempt hair, exchanging glimpses of a hard-shared history that simultaneously binds them and makes them feel painfully alone. The artist's signature style of claustrophobic, heavily etched, six-panel pages deviates little from previous titles, but this time they're in full color.