Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel — Anya Ulinich

A darkly funny graphic novel from the acclaimed author of "Petropolis"

Ulinich's long-awaited second work of fiction, the graphic novel "Lena Finkle's Magic Barrel," evokes Louis C.K.'s sensibilities and Amy Winehouse's longing and anguish -- often in the same frame -- as Ulinich turns her sharp eye toward the strange, sometimes unmooring world of “grown-up” dating. After fifteen years of marriage, thirty-seven-year-old Lena embarks on a string of online dates and receives a brutally eye-opening education in love, sex, and loss while raising her two teenage daughters. With references to Bernard Malamud and Chekhov along the way, this is a smart, funny story told beautifully through Ulinich's text and drawings.