Blankets

It's the semi-autobiographical story that starts with Craig from his childhood, sharing a bed with his brother huddled against the cold of Wisconsin winters. It's a bed that is both a battleground and a life raft.

It mirrors his relationship growing up in the Christian faith, the child of devout parents. Christianity is a refuge against the small-town bullies but becomes something he has to wrestle with in the throes of young love when he meets Raina.

It's such a particular Western story. While nowhere nearly as devout I recognize both the strength and the torment growing up in the faith can have. I know that Jesus painting, I recognize the narrow confines of the church and it's almost desperate proselytization. How the raptures of faith can come up hard against the awareness of first love and how both can be utterly transporting and wildly confusing.

Thompson's brush work is perfect and clear and somehow manages to evoke the nervous awe of first love, the creative impulse, Christian guilt and the raw imagination of youth.