[Book Review] Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter

Mary is not a good writer. She’s not sure she wants to be. But what else is there for the descendent of Mary Shelley? In the new horror-comedy graphic novel Mary: The Adventures of Mary Shelley’s Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Granddaughter (2020), the teenager discovers Shelley wasn’t only a celebrated author—and Frankenstein wasn’t all fiction. 

Mary is a gleefully weird romp from writer Brea Grant, whose horror credentials are plentiful (last year alone, she starred in Lucky and directed 12 Hour Shift—both films also written by Grant), and illustrator Yishan Li (the artist behind Dark Horse’s Buffy: The High School Years and Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1956). It follows the eponymous frank and frustrated Mary as she navigates high school and the pressures of her family’s legacy. As a self-proclaimed bad writer, she feels Shelley loom over her (quite literally in her dreams and from the living room portraits) until she discovers a supernatural trait she shares with her ancestor: the ability to heal monsters. 

Reminiscent of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s tongue-in-cheek attitude, Mary largely achieves the tonal balance for which it strives. Its playfully meta approach to creatures of the night lightens the serious exploration of legacy. Particularly attuned to women’s legacies, the lineage of accomplished women establishes the teenage Mary’s burden of living up not only to her own mother’s expectations, but also to the inimitable Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. The choice of Frankenstein as the graphic novel’s source material is notable: although scholars have analysed the novel’s criticism of masculinity and the excision of women, the majority of adaptations are undertaken by men and tend to gloss over its gendered nuances. Grant’s engagement with Shelley highlights Frankenstein’s position in the canon as a specifically female work. What results is an ode to the struggle of female creativity in a society that is at once demanding and restrictive.

The novel, however, sometimes falters in its pacing and character construction. Although Mary herself is a worthy protagonist, those around her occasionally fall victim to cliché or a lack of development, faults especially noticeable in the graphic novel’s romantic interest. And despite being admirably fast-paced, the movement from one event to another limits Mary’s ability to develop relationships and individual characters, as well as the central premise of Mary’s hidden abilities and her subsequent shift in perspective regarding her family - all of which may be forgiven had Mary been the first instalment of a longer series of adventures. Likewise, the mantra of “The beginning is always today,” a Shelley quote threaded throughout, does not sufficiently alleviate the openness of the conclusion.

Even so, Mary’s comedy, its earnest themes, and its well-crafted illustration deliver a thoroughly fun story. Li’s art marries Gothic sensibilities with manga and the flair of 1990s Goth culture. The artwork is appropriately ominous and modern, and continuously bolsters the text’s humor. Moreover, Li’s contribution to the novel showcases Mary’s struggle to reconcile these two worlds. As any teenage Goth can attest, Mary’s black wardrobe sticks out amid the warm colors of her family’s home and school, but blends suitably in with the cool nights, the medical greens, and undead blues. 

Though the graphic novel would benefit from a series format - perhaps as a monster-of-the-week directed by a larger narrative arc - Mary is nevertheless what it sets out to be: a charming monster mash embroiled with teenage drama and a thoughtful survey of female legacies.

RELATED ARTICLES

---

---

GHOULS GANG CONTENT

EXPLORE

---

MORE ARTICLES

---

---