Red Is My Heart

“Today I posted

you a letter, a very beautiful letter,
three carefully drafted pages written with a
medium-nib Cross fountain pen in black ink.
When I went to write your address on the envelope,
my hand trembled and I invented a new one.
An address that does not exist...

You will never read it.”

That is a bit from the first page of text in this book. I say first page of text because there are also illustrations, too, a red keyhole with a closed eye, a page of black and red puzzle pieces, two birds on a wire under a red ball...

Do you get the idea? This book is relationships, loss, in text, in images (but only in red and white and black). It's even more surprising than what I would call the normally-surprising-Antoine Laurain, and that's delightful for me, exactly what I want from a book...truth...truth told vividly...truth told freshly.

It's hopeless, impossible to review. A picture book for grownups? Poetry? Neither? Both?