A Black Hole of Questions

Charles Burns’s twisted take on the idea of a “plague” (perhaps not the best definition for the disease, but that aside) mirrors the real-life circumstances of STDs while also (clearly) extrapolating on this idea, also using the disease as a tool for exploring the challenges of teenaged life.  The disease is passed like any real-world STD – through sexual contact (although there is indication near the end of the book that it may also be passed through saliva; this is never completely confirmed) – but has the quality of manifesting differently in each person.  Additionally, this disease makes public and unavoidable that which can typically be hidden or lived with.  Interestingly, however, the characters with the disease tend to be stigmatized more for the disease itself, rather than the behaviors that caused them to get the disease, even though the grotesque results are in some ways a physical “punishment” for the “immoral” behavior of the teenagers in the story.

 The group of individuals with the disease in some ways mirrors the social hierarchy of teenaged life: there are those relegated to the “bottom of the barrel” whose mutations show up unavoidably and grotesquely on their faces (Dave), those whose mutations are not as readily obvious but who still take a place among the “outcasts” while remaining removed or “above” the larger group (Chris), and those who have a mutation but are able to hide it enough to continue on with a “normal” life (Rob, Keith).  While the story is told from the perspective of three individuals who begin as “normal” and become a mutant over the course of the story – Rob initially seems to be normal but it is revealed that he has the disease; the reader sees Chris and Keith become infected – all three have mutations that can be “dealt with” (Chris chooses to live among the mutants, although her mutation is such that she may have been able to maintain her normal life, as she indicated at the end of the story when she considers going back home to her parents).   The reader is never allowed inside the head of a character like Dave whose mutation is all over his face.  How do these characters feel as compared to Chris, Keith, and Rob?  Why does Chris decide to isolate herself, both from “normal” society but also from the other mutants that she lives with?  After what happened at the party when everyone saw Chris’s back, was there a way that she could have rejoined “normal” society?  Finally, how are we to understand the way that Keith finds Eliza’s mutation sexy as opposed to grotesque as most other mutations appear?  Why does he associate so freely with mutants even when he is healthy?

Another unexplained element is why the disease manifests differently in different people. There do not appear to be any duplicate manifestations of the disease, and it is unclear why people react the ways they do.  Is it possible that the ways the diseases manifest say something about the person?  Does Chris’s shedding of her skin say something about her hiding within her own skin?  Or perhaps feeling uncomfortable in it?  Does Rob’s independently-minded mouth indicate that he represses?  Or perhaps does not speak much to begin with? 

Burns’s Black Hole leaves me with more questions than independent thoughts; it would probably require multiple readings to start to understand the complex issues of young adulthood, social hierarchy, and difference that he grapples with.