Revision: Britten and Brülightly

Hannah Berry's Britten and Brüligtly is truly a unique work. The film noir vibe of the comic is fused with the a hint of surrealism. Surrealism in the fact that one of the tile characters, Brülightly, is a tea bag. A talking, crime solving, tea bag. And only Britten can hear him, or at least Britten is the only one who talks to him. Which begs the question, is Britten crazy? Is this some bizarre alternate reality where tea bags are sentient? Is Brülightly in fact a dead soul inhabiting a tea bag? What is going on? And yet the oddity of Brülightly's form is never explained, nor is it ever really mentioned as something odd, it's just something that is, like a person having a nose or a dog barking, it just is.

The rest of the novel is a typical film noir detective story starring Britten. Known as “The Heartbreaker” Britten is hired to investigate the apparent suicide of one Berni Kudos. The late Mister Kudos' fiancé Charlotte Maughton suspects foul play and is convinced that Berni would never have killed himself. And so she contacts Britten to assist her, unaware that his nicname and his reputation stem from his prowess as uncovering cheating spouses.

The whole book plays out in traditional detective story fashion, the internal monologues of Britten, the constantly rainy weather, the backstabbing, and all the lies and secrets are just par for the course, pretty much what you'd expect, but the inclusion of Brülightly just adds that little bit of extra bizarreness that intrigues you enough to keep reading because you want to know what the deal with him is. And then you never find out, he's the one mystery in the book that remains unresolved, left for you to figure out yourself. Another interesting facet of the novel is the writing. All of the writing I the book appears to be handwritten, Berry's cursive script shifting in legibility depending on what it is vocalizing. For Britten's internal dialogues the script is very cramped and hard to read, causing you to have to look harder for insight into the protagonists thoughts.

Really aside from just the handwriting the entire artistic style of the piece has a very hand-made vibe. The art looks like watercolor over ink and everything has those little ticks and imperfections that make art truly human. And so you can connect because when you look at the frames you see little flaws and small pieces of true beauty that intrigue you and leave you wanting more,

As far as Hannah Berry's being a woman is concerned, it's really not any sort of a big deal. The story is one that could've been written by and can be read by people of either gender, it's universal in its appeal. The author info is also incredibly vague, causing the story to stand further on its own. Al the publisher tells you about Miss Berry is that she is in her mid-twenties, has contributed illustrations to magazines in the UK, and Britten and Brülightly is her first novel. Nothing else is really needed, the story is strong enough to hold up without any knowledge of the author, it stands apart from her as a unique entity unto itself.