How Jack Lost Time

In this tale of decisions and their consequences, we first meet captain Jack as a solitary soul who spends his entire life aboard his boat, lacking for nothing save human company. He has his plants, his books and a pipe for night-time loneliness.It wasn’t always thus however. Time was Jack was not the crazy captain who throws back into the sea any fish that get caught in his nets. Crazy? Far from it. Jack is consumed by grief and on that account similarly consumed with a quest: to find the ancient whale that years ago, had swallowed his son Julos when the father and son were at sea together. Now Jack has turned into a ‘mean, dark’ angry man who resolved not to return home to his wife until he’s found that whale.

Eventually he does discover the object of his search and soon plunges straight into its mouth, and deep into its belly where sits, looking sad and dirty, his son. A son who at first fails to recognise his father on account of his changed countenance, but does as Jack makes to leave. Julos calls out to him and in due course, the two climb out of the whale and sail back to shore. There however, more grief awaits …

This dark tale is beautifully told in a lyrical style (it was translated from the original French by Arielle Aaronson) and illustrated in sombre shades mainly of grey and brown, in a spare fashion that befits the nature of the telling.