SoXiety by Tamlyn Teow

In a melancholic city of towering skyscrapers, bombarding billboards and blinding screens, resides a dopamine addicted society. The hustle and bustle of day precedes the lonely isolation of night, as they return, alone, to soulless utilitarian apartments where screens consume their remaining waking hours. Spiralling further into depression and anxiety, consuming more but never being nourished, one Man falls into a mysterious underworld, where a metamorphosis begins … And when he eventually returns to the city above, a seed travels with him. A seed of community. A seed of hope.

Tamlyn Teow is an artist, illustrator and props designer, who migrated to Australia when she was 13. In 2013, she left a corporate career to learn how stories are told through art. Tamlyn’s passion is to ‘create works that give hope in challenging times, spark curiosity and bring individuals together by opening their eyes to truth and meaning.’

I have been lucky to have Tamlyn as my cover artist for three of my books – Legend of the Lighthouse Moon, On Gallant Wings, and the upcoming The Disappearing Circus, co-written with Kate Gordon. From the first moment I saw her vision for Legend of the Lighthouse Moon, I knew I was in for a special adventure. Tam’s artistic style is whimsical, beautiful and gritty, all at the same time. She sees the magic in the world and has an ability to display the essence of an entire story in one cover. That’s why I was very excited when I discovered that she would be writing and illustrating her first book in a planned series of almost-worldless graphic novel style picture books for teens and adults, titled The Book of Kin.

Published by Riveted Press, and the very celever Rowena Beresford, the first book – SoXiety – is her debut as an author/illustrator and it is a work of art. The sheer size of this hard-cover book hits you as soon as you pick it up and hold it in your hands. It forces you to concentrate from that moment, as you open the cover and begin to read the story, cleverly presented in black and white, with yellow as a third colour depicting light amongst the grey.

I was completely immersed in the pages of this book, time passing without knowing, as I examined each frame in detail. By the end, I was filled with a multitude of emotions. It really is like attending an art exhibition and standing in front of a series of canvases. At the same time, it is very much an experience of reading a book, with no need for words. Except the one double-spread, which comes in the middle of the story, exactly where it should sit. The images are full of movement, the almost unfinished style of some panels adding to the sense of an ethereal world, and yet, an all too real one.

The endpapers alone are worthy of being framed – a graffiti style rendering of words, images and messages, grasping and jostling for your attention, just like the digital world in which we live. Tamlyn uses numbers and symbols in place of some letters, connecting to our modern framework of communication via texts, messaging apps and advertisement. We are constantly bombarded by these sorts of images and words and Tamlyn has replicated this in her artworks.

The main character, a man with darkened, sketched features, his head hung in sadness, and with hunched shoulders, walks through the grey cityscape. All around him, other people move with their heads lost in wi-fi connections, except for the occasional masked figure who leers from the shadows. There is no connection between people, everyone moving almost as if on a conveyor belt.

The man is small, in this city, swamped by buildings and messaging, and watched over by what I interpreted as a ‘Big Brother’ eye in the sky, knowing everything about us and using this to sell back an empty, meaningless, dopamine fuelled lifestyle to us all. He walks these streets, clutching his stomach, frightened by the clown-like grin of the mask-covered figure, clearly depressed and scared.

And then he sees a small plant, reaching for the light, growing from a drain in the pavement. His tear falls into the plant, as he crouches beside it. When he arrives home, he rips off the ‘armour’ he wears in the world and falls into the world of screens. Swallowed up by all these digital messages, he seems to rot on the inside, and yet, as he releases some of this despair, he returns to the plant, enabling it to grow larger, increasing its light, finally falling through the cracks and down to another world.

It is here that he is able to find solace and hope amongst the forest of trees and flowers and kernels of light. It is here that he finds a mole-like creature, who embraces him, allowing him to free himself from the connected world, releasing all of his thoughts and feelings, as he nestles inside its warmth. Tamlyn cleverly creates a double-spread of text at this point, the man curled and naked, as he realises his truth.

He becomes a chrysalis and wakes, renewed, rising to the surface, the seed of light now inside his own heart. He discovers that the plant has been replaced by a sign and has died. But he now carries his own seed of Hope, which he plants, growing an expansive tree, drawing people from their digital stupors, drawing them to take off their masks, their headphones, their wires of imprisonment. Other people begin to let go of the rot that had festered inside of them too, flocking to the tree and most importantly, to each other, the chrysalis of Hope becoming a moth, flying freee.

This is a groundbreaking, unique and important work, that highlights the ways in which we are all imprisoned by screens, and how we can break away – through human connection, nature and self-reflection. Tamlyn does not have social media, but you can find the excellent background notes and more at thebookofkin.com

This is not a picture book for young children, but rather a graphic-novel style picture book for older teens and adults, that will offer you an immersive and unforgettable experience, and which might even change your life for the better.

Highly recommended and available at Riveted Press and all good bookshops.

Helen