Review: David Small’s Home After Dark is a stark and touching coming-of-age story

Following the success of his graphic novel memoir Stitches, illustrator and author David Small returns to the murky world of adolescence with Home After Dark (McClelland & Stewart), an evocative and heartbreaking look at growing up in 1950’s suburbia.

After his mother abandons the family, 13-year-old Russell Pruitt and his hard-drinking veteran father pack up from their home in Ohio and move to a small town in Southern California. With his father often passed out in a drunken stupor, Russell is free to bike around and explore the neighbourhood. He is soon assaulted by violent bullies in his new school, after which he meets Warren, another shy and bullied teen who shows Russell how to lay low at school to avoid being picked on. The two strike up a quick friendship, but Russell abruptly cuts Warren out of his life after Warren makes an awkward advance on Russell.

Feeling alienated from his friend and trying to avoid having to spend any time at home with his unpredictable father, Russell takes up with Kurt and Willie, two volatile teens who spend their days causing havoc around their small town. After revealing Warren’s advance to his new friends, Russell inadvertently sets off a sequence of tragic events that shows him just how cruel and vicious people can be towards those they view as “other.”

Small’s stark black and white artwork is perfectly matched to Russell’s feelings of alienation and rage, with kinetic lines and large panels letting the reader focus in on Small’s powerful portraits of Russell and his extended family, including the Chinese couple renting a room to Russel and his father, who are dealing with their own struggles against racism in the close-minded community.

Home After Dark delves into that complicated age when we begin to realize that our actions and behaviour can have real, irreversible consequences. Russell is responsible for his harmful actions, but he is also a victim of abuse and neglect, a young teen striving for acceptance and guidance in the physical and emotional absence of his parents. Small doesn’t shy away from the atrocities that teens can commit, but there is a real sense of empathy and care for (most) of these characters, even if their actions can be cruel and misguided.

Like the protagonist of any good coming-of-age story, Russell learns from his mistakes, but Small avoids any pat ending that would absolve Russell of his guilt. Sometimes we simply have to live with our mistakes, an important aspect of growing up that can nonetheless have a devastating effect.

Home After Dark is an intimate character study that also shines a light on the roots of toxic masculinity, and the societal forces that can allow those attitudes to grow and fester, even in the picturesque California suburbs. It’s a stunning piece of work that clearly and thoughtfully examines that nebulous period between the innocence of sheltered adolescence and the sometimes cold realities of adulthood.