A young man’s arrogance and ambition collide with revolutionary politics in a visually groundbreaking graphic novel.
Enter Yerevan, the capital of Armenia — a city in ruins. Wrecking balls swing wildly and cement trucks race through congested streets. Aspiring architect Frunz and his father, the renowned builder known as Mr. Cement, plan to level Yerevan’s historic landmarks and flood the city with Trumpian high-rises. But this plan outrages the citizens of Yerevan, who rise up in Revolution. Amid the ensuing chaos, only one thing is certain: Frunz must brave the streets swarming with rebels in search of the Golden Mean.
Written by Viken Berberian with his signature originality and verve and drawn with audacious compositions, delirious colors, and a kinetic expressionistic technique by the acclaimed painter and illustrator Yann Kebbi, The Structure is Rotten, Comrade is a formally innovative and politically resonant work, by turns prescient, punchy, cautionary, and fearless.
Praise for The Structure Is Rotten, Comrade:
“A painfully beautiful book.” –Etgar Keret
“Frunz’s love of cement is contagious.” –Leanne Shapton
“Kebbi’s outlandish, raw colored-pencil art [is a perfect match for] Berberian’s sardonic voice and apocalyptic sense of humor. This bizarre art-comic will tickle intellectual funny bones.”–Publishers Weekly
“Viken Berberian’s ruined landscapes find synergistic manifestation in Yann Kebbi’s art, filled with frantic scrawls of riotous colored pencils and markers. Revolts – against subjugation, occupation, blind entitlement, utter greed – burst forth with much force…” —Booklist, Smithsonian
Viken Berberian, a writer and essayist, is the author of the novels The Cyclist (2002, Simon & Schuster) and Das Kapital (2007, Simon & Schuster), and of a graphic novel, The Structure is Rotten, Comrade (2019, Fantagraphics Books, Actes Sud), with French illustrator Yann Kebbi.
***Please note: Viken will be selling his novels The Cyclist and Das Kapital at the event. Proceeds from the sale of these two books will go to the Los Angeles Conservancy.
