Loneliness. It's a feeling we all know too well, especially during this year of COVID-19, when many of us have been confined to our homes, self-isolating and desperate for human connection. Filled with introspection, frustration, and disappointment, Paul at Home provides a much-needed space for reflection, reminding us that dissatisfaction is not a reflection of our failures, but rather a part of accepting change.
This latest installment in Michel Rabagliati's semi-autobiographical series follows a significantly-older Paul, recently-divorced and living alone in the home he once shared with his wife and now-19-year-old daughter. The graphic novel opens with Rabagliati's protagonist running errands for his recluse mother. Before we gain any insight into his mental state, we learn about the life of his mother, Aline.
Like Paul, Aline divorces in her early 50s and wrestles with loneliness and depression in the subsequent years. She struggles to find love, dating a widower who passes some months after they met before settling for a man she does not love to ease her solitude. That marriage too ends in divorce. Now, she lives alone in a retirement community, spending her days between doctors' offices and her small apartment.
Little Blue Robot by vinsky2002 (Pixabay License / Pixabay)
This exploration into Aline's life is more than an aside. It's quite keenly a reflection of Paul's fears. Between his health anxieties and his fractured family, Paul fears living and, indeed dying, alone. Chatting in her small living room, Paul tells his mother that he's not ready to date again. His mother, in turn, responds: "Ready? You don't want to be alone at sixty-five, do you? Better get going!"
These first few pages introduce themes that ripple throughout the comic: solitude, tending to broken things, and a desire for human connection tempered by fear of rejection.
The graphic novel is split into seven parts, including an unmarked prologue and epilogue. Each section is preceded by an illustration of the apple tree in Paul's backyard depicted in different stages of ruin. In its first iteration, only half of the tree is alive with lush bundles of leaves. The branches on the other half are bare, and bark peels from the trunk. By the end of the story, the tree is little more than a stump.
While these sections track the passage of time, they also mark the incremental loss Paul experiences. With each chapter, Paul must confront grief, mortality, and change. Between grappling with feelings of undesirability and accepting his daughter's flight from the nest, he must also watch his mother refuse chemotherapy and pass away from rebounded cancer.
Central to Rabagliati's comic is the feeling of alienation, which defines Paul's personal relationships and his interactions with strangers. Despite being surrounded by people—in doctors' offices and book fairs, on sidewalks and busses—Paul spends most of his time alone.