Description
A heartwrenching memoir of a daughter losing her father and a scathing indictment of the medical industry. Arizona grieves at the hospital bed of her father, a man she hardly knew, brain dead after a fentanyl overdose. Doctors encourage her to act quickly to recast him as a hero by way of organ donations. Distraught, Arizona makes a decision that will haunt her for the rest of her life. As she struggles to come to terms with her father s death and her role as next of kin in making his life s last decision, she uncovers inconvenient truths about the organ industry s own codependence on the opioid crisis. Her parents were bohemian wild kids of 90s Montreal. He was a talented skateboarder, charming guitarist, and visual artist. She was an aspiring writer and outcast. They lived with other teenagers in the Plateau in a messy apartment filled with drugs, alcohol, and black-market animals. The city s macabre history McGill Medical School, the Mount Royal Cemetery, ancient cadavers at the Maude Abbott Medical Museum takes center stage as Arizona sorts out fact from fiction. Opioids and Organs is a damning critique of an industry that takes advantage of society s outcasts. It is also the graphic novel debut of O Neil herself, who weaves together a dramatic personal history with that of how humanity made its scientific advances. A muted yet striking pastel palette and a doll-like fantastical elegance belie both the gruesomeness of the book s topic and the rage of its author.
About the Author
Arizona O Neill is a Montreal-based author and illustrator. She is the illustrator of Nelly Arcan s L enfant dans le miroir, and Heather O Neill s Valentine in Montreal. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt, Exclaim! and Canadian Geographic. She has created animated videos for many outlets including CBC. Opioids and Organs is her debut graphic novel.
Reviews
O Neill s playful fourth-wall breaks and winsome watercolours add a textured dynamism to the interviews. Cult MTL. [O Neill] questions the price of fame and confronts the tired myth of the tortured artist. ICI Radio Canada
Book Information
ISBN 9781770468450
Author Arizona O'Neill
Format Hardback
Page Count 374
Imprint Drawn and Quarterly
Publisher Drawn and Quarterly
About the Author
Arizona O Neill is a Montreal-based author and illustrator. She is the illustrator of Nelly Arcan s L enfant dans le miroir, and Heather O Neill s Valentine in Montreal. Her comics have appeared in Hazlitt, Exclaim! and Canadian Geographic. She has created animated videos for many outlets including CBC. Opioids and Organs is her debut graphic novel.
Reviews
O Neill s playful fourth-wall breaks and winsome watercolours add a textured dynamism to the interviews. Cult MTL. [O Neill] questions the price of fame and confronts the tired myth of the tortured artist. ICI Radio Canada
Book Information
ISBN 9781770468450
Author Arizona O'Neill
Format Hardback
Page Count 374
Imprint Drawn and Quarterly
Publisher Drawn and Quarterly
