Starting with a quote from Dante’s The Divine Comedy that sets the theme and lends the book both its title and central metaphor, Brent Williams’s graphic novel Out of the Woods describes his journey through depression and anxiety, and back to health, illustrated wonderfully by Korkut Öztekin’s masterful draftsmanship.
In middle age, the author, a community lawyer and filmmaker, unexpectedly finds himself in a deep depression. It takes some convincing from his doctors and friends before our man accepts the diagnosis, having spent a good deal of time trying to uncover the organic roots of his numerous symptoms, while exploring various alternative medical models to try to explain the way he is feeling. Mundane misery is interspersed with magic realism as Brent experiences a series of waking dreams, in which a bearded and bespectacled mentor character reveals the severity of his depression and, via a couple of educational diversions into basic brain science, shows him what he must do to recover his mental health. The author follows some, but not all, of the advice of this mysterious guide, seeking help though psychotherapy, healthy eating, and exercise, while remaining averse to prescribed medication. Finding a decent therapist is a big help; Brent slowly recovers his gusto and begins to enjoy life’s pleasures once more. In an unexpected twist, however, his nascent recovery is interrupted by a life-threatening physical illness, but a happy end ensues, nevertheless.
Comics don’t have to be funny, and this one is not. The self-reflexive humour or irony that holds so many autobiographical graphic novels together is noticeably absent here, but the depth of the emotional honesty that Williams has poured into the work, combined with Öztekin’s powerful visual storytelling, rendered in colourful line-and-wash, makes for a compelling and satisfying narrative, with which many readers will doubtless identify.