Fatherland by Nina Bunjevac

I had no idea there was conflict between Serb-Americans, especially not the kind that resulted in bombings in the USA and Canada. Bunjevac’s father came here after WWII, and hated the communists. He got involved with a terror group, bombed Yugoslav embassies and property throughout the country. Bunjevac’s mother came from a family that supported the communists, and the two families hated each other. In a town with a sizeable Serb population, the two groups were often at odds. I never knew.

Aside from the benefits of a history lesson, Bunjevac’s family biography has a very original style of illustration. The drawings are stark black and white, almost with a photorealistic quality. There’s no color, and the author portrays her life with her family as anything but colorful. Life in Yugoslavia was peasantry, and in the USA they lived in rust belt towns that would’ve been gray all over. Fleeing back to Yugoslavia in the 1970’s (the husband’s terror activities were endangering the family) they ended up in a communist utopia, just as gray as a mill town, but with straight modern lines.

My only quarrel with this book is that the comic book style makes it difficult to put things in writing. There’s more I want to know about, like how the family managed in Yugoslavia in the 70’s and 80’s, and how they survived the civil war of the 1990’s. Other than that, the story shifts easily between a primitive country, bleak American mill towns, communist industry, and families split by politics.