by Parker
Bryan Lee O’Malley’s Lost at Sea is a master showcase of the secret camaraderie in loneliness.
Stay with me here.
Throughout the graphic novel we follow a young girl on a road trip who is convinced a cat stole her soul. The road trip is just stage dressing. Our protagonist, Raleigh, is so caught up in the psychology of her own loneliness, thinking back on when she remembers having a soul, when she was a kid or when she was with her best friend, or her romantic partner. The book is claustrophobic in a way, we have such a limited view of Raleigh’s reality because of her disinterest in it. She could be telling us about the spontaneous road trip she’s taking with interesting characters, but she’s missing her soul! That’s way more important.
As we learn more about Raleigh’s missing soul (stolen away by a cat, or perhaps, sold to the devil) we learn about her trip through the background, her companions discussing her as if she can’t hear, to be fair to them she isn’t listening. Her three road trip buddies are making their way up California, back to Canada, why where they in California? We don’t get to know. Doesn’t matter. Moving on.
The book, as claustrophobic as it feels and how little information it gives us, effectively brings the reader along Raleigh’s journey, wonderfully and accurately displaying the narrowing effect on the world depression has on its victims. She is unable to feel emotions as one should or recognize that she is making friends the entire time. The kids she’s travelling with are friendly, they like her, and they are more than happy to assist with a 3am cat hunt in search of her missing soul. Our protagonist’s reality is clouded over by her concerns, by her daydreams and fears. It affects her ability to live life as she should. She’s convinced somethings wrong with her, and she thinks no one can help. I’d like to compare it to something I call the Eeyore effect.
Eeyore, the lovably sardonic donkey from Winnie the Pooh, is well known for being sad or depressive. Despite this he has a group of pals who don’t demand happiness of him even the social situation seems to demand it. Raleigh has integrated into this new group in the same way. These young adults have the emotional maturity to understand Raleigh is going through something however they don’t hound her for an explanation. They offer help in the ways they can and include her in conversation despite her preoccupation with her inner thoughts.
This all cumulates in a late-night chase to find Raleigh’s missing soul, and something I loved about this book is that they don’t find it. Aside from the fact that her soul is obviously not in a cat, similarly Raleigh’s brain chemistry is not magically solved by gaining companionship. In the same way the people she lost didn’t take her soul either. People do not make us whole regardless of our relationship with them. While loneliness is hard, there’s a certain comfort in knowing you are alone with millions of people who are also alone with you. Even sharing negative emotions brings relief. Humans put so much brain power into socialization, it is necessary for our healthy development, and severe lack of interpersonal connectedness can stunt a person’s growth. The nature of depression is that it damns its victims by preventing them from noticing opportunities social connections in very sneaky ways. This can feel inescapable, and self-defacing. But even the small connections humans make, the empathy in feeling shitty together, is worth so much. In this way O’Malley got his subject matter to a tee.
Parker is a cryptid and an Aries. Apart from creating content for Sage Cigarettes Magazine, being a socialist, and featuring on the Ghost in the Magazine podcast not much else is known about him. They make some pretty nice art though and you can find it in several journals including Paper Lanterns. You can follow them on Twitter @izzyexe.
