Stoicism and The Impostor's Daughter

     One of the most striking things I found in The Impostor's Daughter is the matter-of-fact introduction of dramatic developments in the plot.  There is regularly a great deal of tension between the events that are taking place in the panels and the narration presented at the top of the panels. One example is on page 31:  Sandell's narration calmly states, "When I turned twelve, something changed in our relationship." We have seen Laurie's father losing his patience with her for not giving him the phone when someone called asking for an unfamiliar person (3) and ignoring her when she failed to perform a piano recital to his standards (9), instead praising one of her classmates, but the screaming for his stapler is something new, particularly as we see Laurie cringing behind him.  In the following panel, Lauries' mother tells her father to "take it to the basement."  There is no drama in her reaction, and the easy instruction suggests she's used to these kinds of angry scenes, even though we have not yet seen him focusing his anger on any of his daughters.  Again, Laurie looks scared, but goes to the basement.  She says something changed in their relationship, but does not specify, and my assumption is that she does not know and the fact that she goes to the basement to be yelled at by her father after he lost his stapler, which seems to have nothing to do with her is as bewildering to her as it is to her audience.  In the next panel she mentions that he was so loud it gave her headaches, and we see her father calling her a monster and an idiot.  It's very disorienting, because there seems to be no real reason for him to act like this.  Her face in this panel looks terrified; her eyes are large and her mouth is grimacing and the audience still does not know exactly what provoked this attack on her, but it seems to be a lost stapler.  

     The same thing happens in a flashback on page 57.  The narration at the top of the panel tells us that "naive stoicism in the pace of peril was second nature to me," while we see her father pointing and looking very angry while yelling at her that if she were a boy, he'd kill her.  Again, this is very disorienting and I was left feeling like it did not make sense, which I think is the point.  The tension between the words at the top of the panel, and the words in the dialogue bubbles, along with the illustrations is a very effective presentation of Laurie's discombobulation.  How can she make sense of something that makes no sense?  Sandell does an excellent job of putting her audience in that hopeless situation.  

     The scene on pages 80 -- 81 are also very emotionally intense, and although there is little narration there, Sandell sticks with her understated style.  Her father basically threatens to commit suicide, and she confronts him in a very strong manner.  He avoids engaging with the issue at hand, claiming that he has to "feed the meter.)  She has finally confronted him, and what the narrator tells us is that she felt a bitter emptiness.  Tat is simple and understated, but the final three panels on page 81 hammer everything home.  We see Laurie's back and her father's face in all three panels, first very close and large, then a little further away, and finally he looks small.  Her image stays the same size in each panel.  She has confronted him and she is growing away from him.  The man who has been the center of her life, larger than life, is suddenly rendered small and distant, and we see that change take place in three small panels.  Her relationship with her father has changed again and this time she does not tell us, but she shows us in a way that is undeniable.  I find it fascinating that the narration can hint at something while the illustrations show the full truth behind the understatements;  it's a strong illustration of the rule "show, don't tell."  Sandell often tells little, but she shows a lot.