Craig Thompson

Writers at Work

My guest on this episode of Writers at Work is Craig Thompson, author and graphic artist. His latest is the epic GINSENG ROOTS: A MEMOIR.

Craig's first graphic novel, GOOD-BYE CHUNKY RICE, was published in 1999 and won high honors such as the Harvey and Ignatz Awards. That year he began his first masterwork, the 600-page BLANKETS, described as a memoir of first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin. The Bloomsbury Review said it is a superb example of the art of cartooning, the blending of word and picture to achieve an effect that neither is capable of without the other. I disagree slightly, but okay. It won several awards and praise from the likes of Jules Pfeiffer, Alan Moore and Art Spiegelman.

Now we have GINSENG ROOTS. It employs as its springboard the story of Craig's childhood, in which he and his siblings spent their summers harvesting ginseng. Ranging far in his tale, Craig conveys the history of agriculture In Wisconsin, the 300-year-old saga of the global Ginseng Trail, and the hardships faced and not always overcome by Ginseng farmers such as his parents and neighbors.

Never far from the heart of Jensen ROOTS is his family story, informed by unforgiving labor, evangelical Christianity, and the conflicting need for home and escape as we meet the Thompsons as they are then and now. I found GINSENG ROOTS to be an astonishing work of storytelling, monumental in scope, yet never far from intimate. I don't think there was a page in which Craig didn't teach me about something I didn't know or made me rethink my opinions. I'm very eager to learn how he came to create a work I'll never forget.