When two women from two different countries with two different languages meet in a third liminality neither of them are entirely comfortable with, they find themselves sharing food, stories, and a friendship that slowly grows into a Parisian romance for the ages. Exhausted, nearly burned-out office worker Sarah and lifelong itinerant, current-au-pair Ping are an unlikely pair of the highest order, drawn together over the course of a graphic novel that will be relatable to every woman who has ever wondered if the journey really is more important than some arbitrary destination—and who is looking for hope that the knowledge and relationships gained along that journey might lead us to fulfilling places we couldn’t have foreseen.
James Albon’s Love Languages opens with six beautiful splash pages set on and around iconic Parisian landmarks. Vibrantly dressed couples of all kinds move through these spaces, professing their affections in a multitude of languages. We as readers are not sure whether they are travelers, tourists or residents. Only that they are very much in love, in a state of affection as sweet as any French dessert.
After this delightful visual treat, we’re dropped into a palette that would have suited Picasso at his lowest. Blues, greys, browns and beige introduce us to a very drained Sarah Huxley, whose woeful moods could have been scored by Miles Davis*. A transplant from London, she finds herself exhausted and belabored by both her workplace and new place of residence. Even babies seem to be laughing at her.
But in that sea of drab appears a bright yellow cardigan. Like a beacon for warmer, happier times, Ping proceeds to pay for Sarah’s morning coffee and also offer her pastries. It’s a touching gesture between two strangers in a mutually strange land.
From here, Sarah’s story brightens. The new connection and relationship brings smiles, laughter, and impromptu language lessons that broaden Sarah and Ping’s hopes for the future. But what happens when the abrasive edges of workplace sexism, class pressures, immigration statuses and other conflicts come crashing into their tentative joy?
I appreciated how grounded the graphic novel was in portraying Sarah’s day-to-day. I also appreciated Albon’s choices about which of her concerns and anxieties were the focus of the inner monologue framing the story—all while offering enough heartwarming loveliness for the rom-com lover in most of us.
This is a patient story that makes wonderful use of comics’ definitive characteristics. Body language and visual language are essential forms of communication, and given just as much consideration on Albon’s pages. Emotively illustrated, colored and lettered, the visuals movingly show physical and emotional aspects of the relationship(s) and context quite literally framing the characters’ speech.
Speech is central to the narrative, often occupying the coveted center position in panels and seamlessly made part of their composition. Much like ambient chatter or television sounds in a subtitled foreign film, the background dialogue is allowed to exist outside of the English reader’s understanding where it is outside of Sarah’s. Cantonese, French, and any language Sarah doesn’t feel comfortable with are lettered in blue, while the English (including translations and British-isms like “swotting”) are printed in black, further playing on both emotion and ideas of objectivity or understanding within the medium.
Comics offer so much as a medium, and I was both surprised and delighted by Albon’s facility in telling such a thoughtful, romantic and quintessentially queer love story through it. I reviewed an eARC from the publisher, but you can buy the finished book at most retailers—even some comics shops carry or can order copies!
* Not about lesbians (but would totally work if remade with them) Elevator to the Gallows is a fascinating film.
