Can of Worms

by Catherine Doherty

A thinly veiled autobiographical fiction, Can of Worms is a silent graphic novel in the tradition of Masareel, Ward, and Milt Gross. Upon discovering that she was adopted, Catherine Margaret Flaherty searches for her birth mother. She navigates between bureaucratic sleuthing and her profound need to uncover her history. The beautifully modulated visual rhythms give the narrative a uniquely understated eloquence.

(From the back cover.)

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics

82 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1999

About the author

Catherine Doherty was born in Toronto in 1965. Her interest in comics began when she discovered the unpublished work of her father in a metal file box in the basement. She currently lives in California. Can of Worms is her first graphic novel.

(From the author bio in Can of Worms.)

Reviews

[Matthew Noe]

This was hard for me. The visual element was powerful and told the story well-enough, but there was something about the lack of the written element that made it hard to get into and appreciate. Without written language it felt meandering at times - which is also part of the tale, but it took it too far I felt.

[Susannah Breslin]

Can of Worms by Catherine Doherty is a remarkable semi-autobiographical account of the author’s attempt to track down and reconnect with her birth mother. Unflinching and insistent, it peels back the layers on what happens when the mother-daughter bond goes wrong and the devastating effects on the truth-teller.

[Dani Shuping]

Catherine Margaret Flaherty (a thinly disguised version of the author) is adopted. But Catherine wants to know who her birth mother is and thus she begins her search through reels of microfilm and indexes at the library chasing clue after clue to find her. And then writing to contact her...and waiting on the response. This wordless story tells a tale of heartbreak and some joy.

The biggest problem that I have with this book is that in some places the illustrations don't carry the story well, which is a bad thing from a wordless graphic novel. For example, towards the end of the book where Catherine is sitting in a car in front of a house is she stalking her birth mother or looking at the house? What made the birth mother change her mind and then change her mind again? None of these events are clear and there's just a disconnect between what we're supposed to perceive versus what the illustrations really show. In some places towards the end of the book we can only really pick up the story by reading the letters that Catherine receives. I get what Doherty was trying to do with the story and why she wanted it to be wordless, but I just don't think this book has enough visual queues to set that up well. I will say that Catherine's illustrations remind me a lot of Josh Neufeld's work (A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge) and are captivating and worth looking at...she just needs to work on her visual story queues a bit more.

It's an interesting attempt at a wordless biography, but I don't think Doherty really succeeds in telling the story that she wants to. It would be interesting to see if the author creates

[Wandering Librarians]

Although she does not use her real full name (the character's name is Catherine Margaret Flaherty), this is the autobiographical story of Catherine Doherty searching for her birth mother.

This was a mostly wordless graphic novel. Catherine discovers she's adopted as a child and much later as an adult she begins the search for her birth mother.

One of the things I enjoyed about this was seeing the process Catherine went through in her search. She began her search in the mid 90s, and it took her three years to track her birth mother down. It involved hours or research at the library looking a microfiche and library indexes and phone books. Now, you'd search for people on Facebook or spend some money to do a classified person search and done.

I did find the story a little confusing at some points because it was wordless. There were some frames that I wasn't totally clear what was going on or what Catherine was thinking about. When Catherine first contacted her birth mother, the woman denied she'd ever had a child, then a year later she contacted Catherine and they met. At the end, there was a letter that seemed to suggest that she wasn't eager to meet again, but maybe that wasn't true. Again, it just wasn't clear what was going on with the birth mother.

Overall though I thought it was a good story and fascinating to follow Catherine on her search. The art was sketch like and not very detailed, which I think was part of why some frames were unclear.

[Rocco Versaci]

This elegant graphic novel is the near-wordless story of Catherine Margaret Flaherty (a thinly disguised version of the author), who, as an adult, searches for her birth mother. Imaginatively told in a deceptively simple visual style, "Can of Worms" announced the arrival of a strong new voice in adult comics.

[Jim]

a true graphic novel about the author trying to find her birth-mom. wordless makes it better and a more challenging read that it would have been w/explanations.
no idea why there is a hockey player on the cover, bought it because i thought it was a ya graphic novel about hockey.

[Steve]

Decent autobio tale about the author's search for her birth mother. Read a bit fast without words, however.