The story begins at the end - or after the end, actually. Three friends, one of whom is our narrator, are eating sushi. A woman they call Miss Finch - though that is *not* her name - has disappeared. They all agree that the circumstances of her disappearance make it unlikely that anyone would believe them if they reported it, so they decide they have not choice but to let it go.
Anyone familiar with Neil Gaiman's work will expect that the story of Miss Finch's "departure" (as the title puts it) will be strange and wondrous. And of course it is. But up until the climactic moment things all the strange and wondrous atmosphere is consistently undercut and we are assured that this is just ordinary, mundane reality we're dealing with. Until it isn't.
The story is adapted from a short story that was originally written for a convention program book and appeared in a previous collection of short stories (though which one depends on which side of the Atlantic you're on - "Smoke and Mirrors" in the UK, "Fragile Things" in the US). Like several of Gaiman's shorter works, it features a narrator who seems to be Gaiman himself. He's an expat Brit living in the US, visiting London incognito to hole up in a hotel and write a film script. Despite his supposed anonymity, a couple of old friends manage to track him down and invite him out for dinner and a show to alleviate their own discomfort with a person they've been saddled with. Enhancing the identification with the author, the characters later make jokes alluding to specific works by Gaiman.
The person the friends are saddled with is Miss Finch. Or rather, she is not Miss Finch. That is not her name, but that is what the friends call her. Jonathan keeps referring to her as Jane's friend, but Jane insists that she is not her friend. Who exactly Miss Finch is and why they are "lumbered" with her (as Jane puts it) is never explained.
The play they were going to see has been canceled, so Jane decides they should go to a new unusual circus. Miss Finch disapproves of circuses, but agrees to go when she is told this one doesn't feature animals. The circus members try to evoke an air of magic and wonder, but the narrator consistently undercuts it by observing the ordinary nature of things around him and their poor attempts to make it seem outre.
I won't give away what happens. It's a light little story, but it has a definite chill of the strange about it. And of course anytime you're given the opportunity of reading a comic drawn by Michael Zulli, you should take it. One of his previous collaborations with Gaiman, "Men of Good Fortune," an early issue in the Sandman run, is my favorite single issue from that entire series (yes, even more than "A Midsummer Night's Dream"). His art is itself a wondrous thing, as usual.
Four stars out of five.
The Facts in the Case of the Departure of
MISS FITCH
Story by Neil Gaiman
Art by Michael Zulli
Lettering and Script Adaptation by Todd Klein
Dark Horse, 56 pp., $13.95 hardcover
originally published January 2008
Friday, June 04, 2010
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