"The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time" A Review

Can a comic strip make you cry? Absolutely.

G.B. Trudeau's compilation of Doonesbury comic strips, entitled The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time is proof of this.

It  is all at once hilarious, heart-warming, and gut-wrenching.

The overarching story chronicles the struggle of soldier B.D., his wife, Boopsie, their daughter, Sam, and family friend Ray Hightower, a.k.a. Zonker, as they struggle to adjust to the loss of B.D.'s left leg, in an explosion while overseas in Fallujah, Iraq.

The narrative doesn't bother easing you in. It starts from the first person perspective of B.D., as he is laying down on the ground, drifting in and out of consciousness. The panels on the first two pages alternate between solid black, with only a dialogue bubble filling the void, and quick glimpses of B.D.'s fellow soldiers, calling for medical assistance, and telling B.D. “You're not dying here, man! Not today!”

From there, much of the narrative takes place at Walter Reed Medical Center, where B.D goes through much of his recovery, and at Fischer House—“the facility that has served as a 'home away from home' for more than 65,000 military families across the country,” according to U.S. Senator John McCain in his foreword. “Fischer Houses,” continues Sen. McCain, “located on the grounds of every major military medical center, enable family members to be close to the wounded during their hospitalization.”

G.B. Trudeau does an excellent job at balancing the human drama with upbeat humor. The reader goes from B.D struggling with moments of depression, to Zonker shouting in the hospital hallway, “Nurse! Self-pity in 5732!” One moment that will make you both smile and cry is Sam's reaction to her mother breaking the news of her father's injury. It might actually make you pause for a moment, to digest what just happened.                                                                                                                                                  
For anyone who thinks that comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels do nothing to probe the depths of the human experience, I dare you to read a copy of this work, and not feel something for the characters.

Final score: 9.9 out of 10