Worm

Starred review from September 18, 2023
In depicting both Cuba and the United States at their best and worst, Time cover artist Rodriguez’s debut graphic memoir is a stunningly rendered elegy for the dreams of revolutionaries, immigrants, and parents. The story begins with Rodriguez’s birth in 1971 in a small town south of Havana. Scarcity forces Cubans to be resourceful and his father opens a successful photography studio, but not without arousing the suspicion of the Communist Party. Rodriguez’s parents decide to leave when they begin to believe government-run schools are brainwashing children. In 1980, the government agrees to let people leave by boat—but not without stalling, harassing, and calling them “worms.” The family makes it to Miami on a Jamaican shrimp boat. Later, Rodriguez studies art at New York City’s Pratt Institute. In 2016, he recognizes similarities between the rises of Donald Trump and Fidel Castro: “I saw shades of my childhood in Cuba, of the repudiation acts against people considered enemies.” As his art pushes back against totalitarianism and media bias, he counters insults by declaring, “I lost one country. I’m not going to lose another without a fight.” The comics feature strong black line drawings against red and army-green backgrounds, with Trump-related images inserted as a shock of orange and yellow. It’s a bracing warning bell for any reader concerned about the future of American democracy.

September 15, 2023
A renowned graphic artist and painter writes of his early life in Cuba and later life in U.S. exile, finding parallels in both countries, "where men with guns made the decisions." Born in 1971, Rodriguez came of age in the Cuban countryside, where, owing to an entrepreneurially minded father, the family sometimes had a little more food than their neighbors. Both parents knew how to navigate the system: "Mam� would never mention Fidel Castro's name. When referring to him, she would quietly rub her cheek to indicate Castro's beard, so that no passing neighbors would hear her speaking of El Comandante." It was their children's being spirited off to school to be indoctrinated, among other things, that convinced the parents to abandon their homeland and join the Marielito boatlift of 1980. They arrived in the U.S. and rebuilt their lives, with Rodriguez working odd jobs until moving to New York to attend art school. Rodriguez emerged there as a critic of Donald Trump's presidency so well known as to draw down denunciation from the man himself. To that, the author has a simple reply: "To an immigrant like me, America is a dream, a land of freedom and opportunity where one can work and express oneself without fear of violence or political persecution. For me, January 6, 2021, shattered the dream." A few scenes, such as those depicting time spent in a holding camp before boarding their boat to freedom, might have been condensed in the interest of heightening the drama. Nonetheless, the well-rendered graphic story is plenty dramatic on its own, and it's significant not just for its portrayal of Castro's Cuba but also for offering evidence that the Cuban American exile community is not politically monolithic. A sharply observed document of totalitarianism and its discontents--this gifted artist in particular.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

October 1, 2023

Rodriguez (Sergio Saves the Game) details his journey from growing up in Cold War Cuba to becoming an internationally acclaimed illustrator and children's book author in this vividly rendered memoir. Born just six years after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Rodriguez spent the first nine years of his life in El Gabriel, a small town not far from Havana. Tenderly evoked reminiscences of his extended family and friends during these years intertwine with anecdotes illustrating rationing, food and supply shortages, and the rampant paranoia of being perceived as disloyal to the state. This provides a fascinating and complex portrait of the author's childhood leading up to 1980, when his parents decided to emigrate to the United States. Upon announcing their decision to leave Cuba, the family is forced from their home with nothing but the clothes on their backs and placed in a detention camp alongside convicted prisoners and psychiatric patients until they are permitted to board a shrimping vessel bound for Miami. After arriving, the family attempts to carve out a future for themselves while also pining for home and those left behind. VERDICT A passionate firsthand account of historical events and a compelling coming-of-age tale in one.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 1, 2023
"So we left. We left it all behind." These words, spoken by Tato, paired with a setting sun and a trail in the ocean waves, are how Worm ends--but it is also, in a way, how the entire story begins again. Worm opens by sharing Rodriguez's memories of a childhood in Cuba, showing how the rise of Fidel Castro and the party changed the country and their way of life in ways small and large. Things escalate when the family decides to leave their home and, in the way of comics about refugee experiences, the reader is given a glimpse into the dehumanizing experiences that follow. The pages are drawn in a way that recalls Riad Sattouf's The Arab of the Future, and readers should plan to linger with the pages heavy with text. The comic isn't just a memoir of a difficult past, however; Rodriguez notices similarities in the way things changed during his childhood and the changes happening in his adopted country, the U.S., today. In the later part of the book, he brings us to the present day, highlighting his experiences with his now infamous Time magazine covers and shares fears for what may be to come. A powerful addition to the journalistic memoir comics canon.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.