Windows on the World

by Robert Mailer Anderson, Jon Sack, Zack Anderson

Overview

Based on the screenplay of the award-winning 2019 film, this graphic novel chronicles a son’s search for his undocumented immigrant father, who was working in the Twin Towers, in the wake of 9-11.

An undocumented immigrant father has been bussing tables at the famous Windows on the World restaurant to support his family in Mexico. Then, tragedy strikes. His family hears no word for weeks. Refusing to give up hope, they send young Fernando on a quixotic mission across the border to find his father and bring him home. Along the way, Fernando experiences a warm embrace from fellow immigrants and a cold shoulder from The City That Never Sleeps. Told with empathy and nuance, this emotionally resonant story reflects on how the pains of our recent past have shaped the character of America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683963226
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	06/02/2020
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	1,063,247
Product dimensions:	7.70(w) x 10.20(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Robert Mailer Anderson is a San Francisco-based writer, producer, and activist. He has written a novel, Boonville, and a play entitled The Death of Teddy Ballgame. He cowrote the films Pig Hunt and Windows on the World. He is a San Francisco Library Laureate, among other honors.

Jon Sack is a US- and UK-based artist and writer. He graduated with an MFA from Goldsmiths College in 2006, and his work has been published and covered internationally. His comic books include La Lucha, which is about violence in Juárez and the lawyers working to combat it, and Iraqi Oil For Beginners, about the complicated history of oil in Iraq.

Zack Anderson lives mostly in Northern California.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/27/2020

This heart-wrenching 9/11 drama draws back the curtains on American myths, revealing a global and complicated world. Fernando is a college dropout working as a bellhop and reading Don Quixote in his native Mazatlan, Mexico, when the Twin Towers fall. His father, Balthazar, works as a dishwasher in the Windows on the World restaurant and sends money home to his family. Fernando’s mother spots Balthazar in a news clip of people fleeing the wreckage and soon Fernando is making his way to New York City. At a 9/11 rescue center, he’s told that “if didn’t officially work in the Towers, he can’t officially be missing.” From Downtown to Spanish Harlem, Fernando navigates a minefield of racism in the grieving city—and finds romance or something adjacent along the way. Joining a crew of Nigerian window washers, Fernando gains more insight into inequities with each swipe of his squeegee. Though he begins to mourn his father, he later discovers his disappearance is due to a smaller, domestic tragedy. The art is bold, cinematic, and deeply shadowed, and the unexpected ending is a product of cynical wisdom from looking back at the two decades since the event, and stronger for it. This is a resonant tale for troubling times. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"One of the most topical, relevant, and necessary comics out there right now."

Solrad

"A much needed and fresh look at Latinx life."

Ishmael Reed

"An affecting road drama written with a mix of delicacy and grit, Windows on the World examines the idea that [in the days following 9/11] the uncertainty for families of immigrants, particularly undocumented ones, was elevated in a way that many white Americans can’t conceive."

Comics Beat

"Fierce and generous, moving and unpredictable, Windows on the World is the story of the trouble we're all in, and the dream of how we just might get out."

Daniel Handler

"A stirring piece of narrative art, with a graphic eloquence conveying both intensity and true compassion."

Jonathan Lethem