This Beautiful, Ridiculous City: A Graphic Memoir

Sohini’s first full-length graphic novel is a lovely, personal paean to the unique charms and comforts of New York City. Sohini puts her own experience in the context of her cultural forbears seeking answers and inspiration in the United States’ foremost metropolis, with influences as far-reaching as Sylvia Plath, Alison Bechdel, and Shah Rukh Khan. As an adult immigrant from India, she offers a unique perspective on New York’s allure for her personally—as an escape from a difficult, destructive relationship in her twenties, and as a chance to find her own space after living in close, often suffocating physical proximity to her extended family. She realizes, critically, that New York also represents the full realization of a capitalist, globalist notion of success that grew exponentially in India in the 1990s, one embodied in the Bollywood films of the time. She sees too how this widespread capitalist fantasy has led to New York City’s increased gentrification. Sohini’s wide-ranging reflections are accompanied by visual vignettes of the city’s sunsets, apartment mise en scene, well-known landmarks, and sensual (often food-based) delights.