The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue

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The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (The Contract With God Trilogy #1-3)

4.22 of 5 stars 4.22 · rating details · 1,374 ratings · 122 reviews

With graphic narrative that "was closer to the writing of Bernard Malamud or Isaac Bashevis Singer than any comic art which had preceded it" (The Economist), Contract with God, originally published in 1978, was the first graphic novel: the prototype; along with A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue; for such seminal works as Maus and Persepolis. Set during the Great Depression,...more

Hardcover, 528 pages

Published December 17th 2005 by W. W. Norton & Company (first published 2005)

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Jun 01, 2011 logankstewart rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-read, classics, graphic-comics, library, old-america

Will Eisner is a rather significant individual in the history of the graphic novel, as well as the comic world at large. He is, after all, sometimes referred to as the Father of the Graphic Novel. In fact, the Eisner Awards (the comics' equivalent to the Oscars) are named after him. Of course, any serious fan of graphic novels has read some Will Eisner. Well, color me red and call me a strawberry, I can finally say I have.

The Contract with God trilogy is one large collection of three individual...more Will Eisner is a rather significant individual in the history of the graphic novel, as well as the comic world at large. He is, after all, sometimes referred to as the Father of the Graphic Novel. In fact, the Eisner Awards (the comics' equivalent to the Oscars) are named after him. Of course, any serious fan of graphic novels has read some Will Eisner. Well, color me red and call me a strawberry, I can finally say I have.

The Contract with God trilogy is one large collection of three individual graphic novels: A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories, A Life Force, and Dropsie Avenue. Each volume tells a complete story, though the three are interwoven and related. The stories largely deal with racism, religious bigotry, and hard life through the Great Depression. The colors are all muted sepia toned, seemingly from pencil. This medium choice adds a bleakness throughout the book, certainly fitting to the setting. Eisner's lines are sometimes rushed and simple, befitting of a comic creator of Old, but I think anything fancier (i.e., more Realistic) would detract from the story.

A Contract with God is composed of four smaller stories: "A Contract With God", "The Super", "The Street Singer", and "Cookalein". In it we read the tale of a Jewish Russian man who comes to America and settles down on Dropsie Avenue, taking up residence in a Bronx tenement. Life is hard and goes awry, and the story is grim and tragic.

A Life Force pretty much deals with man's goals in life, to love and be happy, and compares them to a cockroach. This one at least has more characterization, and was easier to relate to than the first. It also seemed to have more of a plot, one that was more than halfway interesting. Still, the story was bleak.

Dropsie Avenue was probably my favorite of the three. Its main character is Dropsie Avenue itself. This story begins in the late 1800s and chronicles the development of the land and its Dutch settlers to where it is now. We see the land change, moving from farms to tenements and factories. We see the people change, phasing through Dutch, Irish, Jewish, Russian, Puerto Rican, African American, and many other races. We see how the society changes and how it affects Dropsie Avenue. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

This review doesn't paint a pleasant picture of Eisner's acclaimed work, and that's probably because the story was so danged depressing. Eisner was born in 1917, so he lived through the Great Depression and through the changes he's created. In fact, he drew from his own experiences for many of these tales, and I suppose they're probably more autobiographical than we know. Reading tragedy is hard for me to "like," per se.

However, I can't really say that I enjoyed the read and thoroughly recommend you to all read it immediately, either. I can understand and appreciate the history of this book, how it is largely responsible for the creation of the graphic novel industry today, and I'm thankful for this. Still, the story is very complex and meticulous, weaving many threads through many characters and locations, and the book never rose above its potential.

So do I recommend Will Eisner's Contract with God trilogy? Yes, and no. Yes if you're a graphic novel fan and are interested in reading something by a legend. Yes if you enjoy stories told with a Great Depression setting, especially dealing with race, nationality, and religion. No if you're new to graphic novels and are curious about them (for that I'd recommend Craig Thompson's Blankets for something Real, or Alan Moore's Watchmen if you like super-heroes in your graphic novels). No if you're wanting something with color and something less depressing. In the end, I'm glad I've read it, but I don't plan to read any more by the man, either.(less)

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Jan 01, 2009 Bryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, 2008, wish-list

SOME OF MY FAVORITE QUOTES FROM THE BOOK:

"Doesn't he understand? It wasn't just a living... I was making a something. A reason for living! ...Otherwise, how is a man different from a cockroach??"

"So?? Mister cockroach. What are you struggling for?? To maybe stay alive a few days more? Well... To tell the truth so am I trying to stay alive! So, then, what's the difference between us?? You, being only a cockroach, just want to live! For you it's enough! But me... I have to ask, why!? Why, why......more

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Jun 25, 2007 Tina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

I liked this book, but it was an oddly long, slow read, considering how much of it is pictures. Of course, it's also technically three books in one, which could explain it.

The art is amazing and amazingly detailed, and the stories are good though rather dark and depressing -- partly b/c many of them take place during the actual Depression. I think the books get progressively better, with Dropsie Avenue being my favorite, as it follows a neighborhood throughout 100 years of history and explores a...more

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Mar 17, 2009 Brad rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

I can't get over Eisner's really weak characterization of women. Yes, he's a great artist and storyteller, but he doesn't really present a strong woman anywhere in these three stories.

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Sep 24, 2012 Jon Shanks rated it 4 of 5 stars

The "Citizen Kane" of the graphic novel/sequential art World (don't call it a comic book!) and rightly so. Still stands up after all these years as an epic read. It is full of pathos taking the reader through as many emotions as the varied inhabitants of Dropsie Avenue. This volume contains the A Contract With God "Trilogy" of A Contract With God, A Life Force & Dropsie Avenue. The first contains a series of fine vignettes but with nothing that really connects them unlike "A Life Force" in w...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Edmund Davis-Quinn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Just finished the trilogy.

Blogged about it on my blog and wrote reviews about individual book.

Amazing how far graphic novels have gone in less then 35 years.

Here is the blogpost: http://ed2dq.com/2012/03/19/the-contr...

Here is the part of the post on the trilogy:

So decided I will talk about the book I just finished Will Eisner’s “The Contract With God Trilogy”. This took a while to read. The first and third books I read quite quickly. The middle book “A Life Force” took much, much longer.

“A Cont...more

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Aug 26, 2011 David Rush rated it 4 of 5 stars

I finally got around to reading Contract With God and the rest of the trilogy. Often named as a milestone in the development of the graphic novel, I found the title book to be the weakest. Contract With God seems to me a little forced. Would anybody really think a contract you write yourself would get a binding result from God. Eisner full all of the books with Jewish flavor which I probably shouldn't comment on. BUT, I kind of thought Jewish history was filled with God's people having unfair e...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Jayme rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, 20th-century, america, ebook, graphic-novel, historical-fiction

Book 2: A Life Force

Oops, I read this book first before realising it was a trilogy. Luckily it looks like it can stand alone. At least, I wasn't confused at any point.

This was a great book set during the depression and the beginning of WWII in New York. It covers the early union formations, fear of communism, the Italian "family" connections and immigration problems, and the war with Hitler. Mostly told through the story of Jacob, a Jewish immigrant.

The artwork was straight up, classic black i...more

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Jan 24, 2010 Bucket rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american-dream, culture, generational-epic, history, literary, politics, religion, reviewed, graphic-novel

I found the first 'graphic novella' (A Contract with God) a bit depressing, but this general downtrodden feeling grew on me as I worked my way through the other two sections of this trilogy. The nitty-gritty artwork definitely added to this mood. The characters in the second and third sections also came to life far better than those in the first section. I fell for Abie Gold and Rowena especially, but Ruby was also wonderful. Jacob Shtarkah was probably the most well-rounded character in all thr...more

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May 31, 2008 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics

What can I say? When Will Eisner was shopping the first book of this trilogy - A Contract with God - around to publishers, he had a bit of a dilemma. What exactly was this book he had created? It certainly used all of the devices of a comic book, but it certainly didn't have any superheros, wasn't necessarily action packed, didn't appeal to kids, and wasn't all that funny. So he dubbed his little four part literary book a graphic novel. Now, I'm not so fond of using that term, with its pretensio...more What can I say? When Will Eisner was shopping the first book of this trilogy - A Contract with God - around to publishers, he had a bit of a dilemma. What exactly was this book he had created? It certainly used all of the devices of a comic book, but it certainly didn't have any superheros, wasn't necessarily action packed, didn't appeal to kids, and wasn't all that funny. So he dubbed his little four part literary book a graphic novel. Now, I'm not so fond of using that term, with its pretensions, with its condescension to the kids' stuff of comic books. To me, a comic strip can be just as great, and as worthwhile, as 500 page tome of sequential art.

Be all that as it may, this is really one of the most quintessential "serious" comics of all time. With its breadth of scope and complexity of characterization this trilogy stands above any other comics I have read. Every single page in this collection shows that Eisner was an innovator, a master storyteller. His panels are never dull or constrained. The art drifts in and out of boxes and overlaps, and here and there a great tableau is shown, framing a story, getting at the heart of the matter.

The first book in the trilogy, as I have mentioned, is a four part tale, each section linked, if only marginally, by the fact that each centers around the denizens of 55 Dropsie Avenue, in the Bronx, a fictitious amalgamation of Eisner's childhood neighborhoods - the Lower East Side and the Bronx. We learn about a religious man, from Eastern Europe, who finds that God does not honor contracts. He loses heart and hope and lets greed and lust take over his life. There is little hope in his tale, and we see in the end that many are doomed to repeat his mistakes. Eisner tells the story of a street singer and the Super for 55 Dropsie. Each of these men have problems that haunt them until the day they die. Finally, the best story in the book Cookalein tells of the summer vacations in the mountains of Dropsie's residents. The plight of the wives, the cuckolds, and the young men trying to find love - but mostly sex - and the wonder of being somewhere besides the gritty tenements and pavement of the Bronx. But all the vices of the city are inescapable. There are money-grubbing women, and men. An unavenged rape caps it all off, and young Willie, the center of the story, and a kind of surrogate for Eisner, returns to Dropsie, to an emptiness beautifully portrayed by the panorama from his fire escape.

The second book in the trilogy A Life Force is the best constructed book, and really gets to the heart of the neighborhood and its characters. The life force of the title is a bit of a conceit that Eisner throws in, mostly in the beginning and the end of the story, comparing the lives of humans to those of cockroaches. Jacob Shtarkah throws a cockroach from his window. It falls 3 or 4 stories to the alley below. It lies on its back for a moment, then rights itself and scuttles on with its life. There are many characters and much to analyze in this story, but really I think this story is more powerful than the other two books in the trilogy because Eisner sticks with the same cast of characters throughout. The struggles of these characters, their needs and dreams, their misapprehensions and their livelihoods, their fears, all become dear to the reader, only after we know these characters well, after we've seen them suffer and thrive. Eisner imbues his Dropsie Avenue with grit and moral ambiguity that is lacking in most comic stories. The book itself is worth reading separately. This, I think, is Eisner's masterpiece. It encapsulates the immigrant experience so well, and the mood and struggles of a generation with masterful art and substance. The page showing the traumatized Max carrying Angelo from the burning lumber yard is powerful, the billowing smoke behind his head evoking the storm within and the fury of society.

The third book in the trilogy Dropsie Avenue is a sort of survey of the history of Dropsie. Going back all the way to the time of Dutch predominance in New Amsterdam, Eisner shows the changing face of one street, in an enormous city. Though there is a bit of continuity in these stories, the reader never really gets to know many of these characters. Maybe that's Eisner's point. If a neighborhood is not the buildings, but the people who live in a particular area, then those neighborhoods die every day. The same themes as can be found in the previous two books are explored again at great length. Though this is still a great book, Eisner seems to have lost a bit of steam at this point. His panels and his pages aren't nearly as rich as in the previous two books, and his characters are less memorable. His treatment of race relations and drug problems is questionable. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile read.(less)

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Jan 21, 2008 Rick rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, comics

Eisner’s trilogy (“A Contract with God,” “A Life Force,” and “Dropsie Avenue”) is widely regarded as a seminal work in the realm of graphic novels. I enjoyed it, though might have liked it more in three installments than one straight read. Parts are brilliant; other parts tedious, repetitive, and, as far as the storytelling goes, hackneyed. The weaknesses dominate in the end. Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx is the setting for all three parts of the book. Gritty, grim, and filled with incidence of vi...more

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Jan 06, 2009 JD rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recently-rented, graphic-novel

Wow, what a difference 3 or 4 decades will make! Having just read The Best of the Spirit (review here:View all my reviews.)it was pleasantly jarring to slip immediately into A Contract with God.

Great, great, book. There's four separate stories, all of them packed with complex characters (something I felt was pretty much lacking in the Spirit stories)--the most complicated of which was the super from the third story. I particularly liked the interwoven story lines of the fourth story, Cookalein,...more

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Mar 03, 2013 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics, 2013

The appreciation is for the form and style thought the trilogy and not so much for the story. There were moments of eye-rolling and a willingness to forgive Eisner because the plot would rest too easily in the modes and types of comic story-telling. But it's necessary reading for an understanding of graphic novels as it really framed the genre.

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Feb 28, 2013 Tia Widiana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Gambarnya realis, ceritanya bagus, manusiawi banget. Soal komunitas Yahudi. Pengkhianatan, kehilangan, duka cita.
Mood yang terbangun di cerita ini memang angst. Sehabis baca harus banyak-banyak liat gambar kucing atau bayi landak atau bayi singa laut biar menghilangkan sensasi pahit di hati.

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Aug 15, 2007 Felis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: comics-cartoon-graphic-novel

Rarely could you find a graphic novel that contains story other than fantasy genre. This one is one of them. Telling the story of various characters in fictional Dropsie Avenue in New York, the book succeeds in bringing our imagination alive. The characters are ranging from Hasidic Jew to earlier inhabitant of Dropsie Avenue, the Dutch. The story also give you glimpse of the social change in America for decades, the arriving of the English, the Irish, then the Jew and Italian, and the Black Amer...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Will Mercier rated it 3 of 5 stars

I was hooked through the first two books, escpecially the "Contract with God" section. The latter two were alright, but I felt that the high point of this trilogy was the beginning and the end was a drag. Great artwork throughout and the story is really good, it's just the story/ies are more captivating in "Contract with God" and "A Life Source".

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Mar 14, 2011 Allysworld rated it 5 of 5 stars

Okay, I gotta admit. I've never read a graph novel, because I looked down on books with too many pictures, and non-fiction in general. But when i saw a facebook post about this book, I was intrigued. So I went to the library, and checked out the trilogy, and WOW.. I couldn't put it down! Its amazing. The pictures really don't get in the way, as I expected, and they add a lot. Its almost like reading a movie, slide by slide. And although its fiction, it sure feels real. Its feels like the differe...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Oliver Hodson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pretty brutal book, no shortage of violence, myopia, depression, hope, lust, bigotry, and community. Liked the art a lot, eisner knows how to tell a story!

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Feb 07, 2012 William Clemens rated it 5 of 5 stars

Three gra[hic novels, each composed of smaller stories and each dealing with the same neighborhood in the Bronx are combined in this one volume that focuses on life in the Bronx in the 20th century.

Somehow Will Eisner manages to make these incredibly sad and historical tales compelling and beautiful. Muted artwork, showing characters cleanly and neatly, or ugly and messy as befits their actions. Background scenes that pull you in to the neighborhood and convey what it felt like then and there.

I...more

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Jun 21, 2007 Liam rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, reportage

The third volume (Dropsie Avenue) was my favorite. It detailed the formation of a Bronx neighborhood beginning in the 1870 with Dutch farmers and the following waves of poor immigrants, English, followed by Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Blacks and finally Hassids. A story of the people living in a neighborhood, the cultural exchanges both positive and negative between them, and the political/financial/cultural forces at play that reduced parts of the Bronx to the bombed-out mess it was i...more

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Nov 07, 2007 Nia rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fans of comics and of New York

I read this book in a mad hurry to reach the end of each story, so I don't have a well-formed impression other than they fact that it's very sketchy and episodic, especially the first two books. The setting is at times even sordid (what would you expect of the Bronx during the Depression) but the most interestin thing about the themes is that there is a basic tenderness and compassion in the treatment of the characters that seems odd considering their flaws and miseries.

It does have a feature t...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Adam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-comics

It is interesting both to see what is billed as "the first graphic novel" in "A Contract With God" and also to note the development of Eisner's art in the medium, even though he was already a master of "sequential art." He tells a great deal visually, in the poses and expressions of his characters, and injects a life into the setting that is by no means the norm in graphic stories. When Eisner draws a rainstorm, you can hear the drops.

"Contract" strikes me as the weakest of the three books colle...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels, favourites

Highly enjoyable only the 2nd eisner i`ve read. A brilliant insight to humanity and a social commentary of a neighbourhood through the generations. A must read

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Jul 18, 2008 Jennifer rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novels

I've been meaning to read this book for a while. Eisner is basically the grand-daddy of graphic novelists, and my understanding is that A Contract With God was really the first "graphic novel," as such. While Eisner's themes of the relationship between people and god, racial, ethnic and economic conflicts, and the rise and fall of a neighborhood are still relevant today, overall the work does seem a bit dated. He also relies very heavily on text to get his point across. Still, I can definitely s...more

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Jul 07, 2009 Shannon rated it 2 of 5 stars

Okay, so its a little bit of a lie that I read this completely. I actually gave up on reading towards the end and needed to get it back to the library - and honestly just wasn't that into finishing it. I will say that the topic is interesting and the concept is different, but it was a disjointed and didn't flow well. The different characters barely interact and there is no real connection in the book other than they all live in the same slum apartments. You just end up reading really short depre...more

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Oct 02, 2009 Clay rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, comics

It was a good read. From a historical perspective, this is supposedly one of the first graphic novels and the stories are interesting from a historical perspective as well, as it is placed in pre-depression, depression and post-depression settings. This is actually three books in one, hence the "trilogy". The art is tremendous throughout, but the stories get better toward the end. The early stories are good and pertinent, but they are somewhat terse, chopped off early, and are commonly ended wit...more

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May 12, 2012 Lewis Shaw rated it 4 of 5 stars

An ambitious work detailing the life of a neighbourhood. The individual tales are told with the simplicity and depth of parables, which avoid banality accompanied by Eisner's beautifully kinetic artwork. The tales and prose are recursive; both characters and imagery (cockroaches, ships) are returned to, lending the tales, like the fortunes of Dropsie Avenue itself, a cyclical nature. It is the recapitulation of a guardedly hopeful, yet occasionally grim, vision of America and of life, both comic...more

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Nov 29, 2007 Doron rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: New York history, Graphic Novels.

As an urban planning student and a native New Yorker I still learned a great deal about urban life that I haven’t learned in previous courses. This is a prefect for anyone wanting to know about New York or to get into the genre.

Of the three books included in this anthology, my favorite was the second, though parts of the third really were some of the deepest most comprehensive writing about New York I have ever read. The artwork is incredibly impressive and detailed and can at times go at a tor...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Nicole rated it 5 of 5 stars

Beautiful.

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Apr 12, 2008 doreen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: graphic-novel, fiction

I had heard of Will Eisner, but didn't read anything by him until I managed to check this out from the library. I still have a lot to learn about this seminal artist, but this particular work was amazing.

The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue is magnificent in conveying the dreams and despair of working-class living in the big city. Eisner's illustrations are wonderful in creating stories all their own, with wonderful characterisation and stories that are incredibly human.

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About Will Eisner

WILL EISNER was born William Erwin Eisner on March 6, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. By the time of his death on January 3, 2005, following complications from open heart surgery, Eisner was recognized internationally as one of the giants in the field of sequential art, a term he coined.

In a career that spanned nearly seventy years and eight decades — from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of d...more

More about Will Eisner...

Books by Will Eisner

A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories

Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion

Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative

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The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (The Contract With God Trilogy #1-3)

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