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Join Lilli Carré as she signs copies of her new graphic novel The Lagoon. She will also sell prints and various little handmade book items. Refreshments will be served!

In The Lagoon, a family is seduced by a mysterious creature’s siren song that can be heard emanating from the lagoon after dark, and how each member reacts to the song in The Lagoon is the crux of the story. For the wise — or pixilated — Grandpa, the song reminds him that, in the time he has left, he must pause to respect, appreciate, and fear nature. The song hints at something that Zoey, the daughter, is too young to fully grasp. And the song lures the sexually frustrated mother, and eventually, her husband, into danger… Carré experimented with nib pens and brushes while drawing this black-and-white graphic novel, giving the art a different feel from her previous, Eisner-and-Harvey-Award-nominated story, Tales of Woodsman Pete. The Lagoon was influenced by the films Creature from the Black Lagoon and Night of the Hunter, but reads more like the gothic, family narratives of Flannery O’Connor or Carson McCullers. Rhythms — Grandpa’s taps, the ticking of a metronome — are punctuated by silences that pace this “sound”-driven story. Older teen and adult readers are invited to imagine the enigmatic creature’s haunting, ever-shifting tune as it reverberates through weedy waters, eventually escaping the lagoon to creep into windows at night.

Lilli Carré was born in 1983 in Los Angeles and currently lives and works in Chicago, making animations, illustrations, and comics. Her animated films have shown in various festivals in the US and abroad, including the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, and her previous book of comics Tales of Woodsman Pete is a collection of her stories surrounding a hermit who’s slowly losing his wits.

Visit her at lillicarre.com