Phantom Hearts is a beautiful, haunting graphic novel, featuring a coming-of-age sapphic romance, a thrilling murder mystery, and several supernatural twists. Malia and Keezy investigate the mystery behind a bus crash, and Malia’s involvement takes a dark turn as she begins to see ghosts. She is haunted by the restless spirits of her dead classmates, deals with overwhelming anxiety and grief, all while the pair grow closer. Written by Rosie Talbot and illustrated by Sarah Maxwell, the novel is visually stunning, and no less stunning on the reader’s emotions.
In conversation with sci-fi author Esmie Jikiemi-Pearson, Talbot and Maxwell discussed the experience of working on the project together, from Talbot coming up with the idea at a Scholastic meeting, to Maxwell bringing her script to life as her first full graphic novel. They both admitted that it had been overwhelming at first, as Talbot moved from a pitch to a full draft and Maxwell previously having stayed away from longer projects, but their collaboration has proven successful and produced a deep, meaningful piece of artwork.
The story itself contains big, important themes such as anxiety and grief, and it is clear that Talbot is passionate about writing these elements into the tale and seeing them broken down on the page. She reasoned that “we shouldn’t shy away from dark themes when it comes to teen fiction because teenagers are going through it too, there is no age for grief,” and I am inclined to agree. Maxwell’s visual representation of this grief is at once beautiful and haunting, with anxiety depicted as a tightrope, in water and visual pathetic fallacy, and in Maxwell’s vision of “encroaching darkness”. Her illustration achieves exactly what Talbot first proposed, to the point where they joked about how it seemed that their brains had somehow connected.
At the same time, Phantom Hearts depicts a sweet, sapphic teenage romance between Malia and Keezy. Maxwell explained the ‘full circle’ sense she had while illustrating the pair, refencing her own childhood of “scour[ing] the internet just for any ounce of queer representation” in fan art and fanfiction, and noted that “it was a joy to depict” knowing the collection of recent queer fiction it would become part of.
The conversation between Rosie Talbot and Sarah Maxwell was wonderful to listen to with great guiding questions from Jikiemi-Pearson, especially as someone newer to graphic novels, and I believe there is something for everyone is this story. Talbott herself expressed, “I do hope that readers find part of themselves in this graphic novel in many different ways. There’s a lot of different characters, and a lot of different sorts of backgrounds and representation and life views.” I believe, in collaboration with the visuals of Marwell’s art, she has achieved her goal.
Rating: ★★★★☆
Writing on the Wall was published in October 2024. Other Off the Shelf Festival events can be found here
