Graphic novels -- comic books published in book form -- have become a minor publishing phenomenon in recent years. Anyone needing proof that the graphic novel format can be used to tell powerful stories of a serious nature need look no further than Maus: A Survivor’s Tale.

Maus is the true story of a young cartoonist (Artie) who, following his mother’s suicide and his own nervous breakdown, attempts to better understand his cranky, distant, sometimes manipulative father (Vladek). In doing so, Artie persuades Vladek to relate his experiences as a survivor of the Nazi death camps during the Second World War. The two stories -- the adult Artie’s renewed relationship with his father, and his parents’ tormented life and harrowing escapes from death in a series of concentration camps -- are interwoven throughout the two-volume work. This grim scenario is told through the cartoonist’s device of using anthropomorphic characters. The Jews are depicted as mice, the Nazis as cats, and the Polish citizens as pigs.

Spiegelman has said that he used animals as characters in part to show how the Nazis considered Jews to be less than human and partly to help distance the reader from the horrors of the Holocaust. But in many ways, Spiegelman’s mice provide the reader a more heartfelt understanding of the plight of the European Jews and what it means to be the child of a Holocaust survivor. Maus is one of the few true masterpieces of the graphic novel format, but it also stands as one of the great works of Holocaust literature and a moving story of human survival.

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale is shelved on the basement level of the Library. Volume 1: My Father Bleeds History is located at call number D 810 .J4 S643 1986, and Volume 2: And Here My Troubles Began is located at call number D 804.3 S66 1991.

Michael Lavin wrote this Monthly Book Spotlight.