Helen is an amateur bird watcher and naturalist who lives in a rural community in Wales. When a local farmer Bill tells Helen that a â oerare birdâ named Emrys killed himself at Cuddig farm, she decides to investigate. One of the dogs at the farm tells her, by way of explanation, that Emrys â oehad no feathers and couldnâ (TM)t fly.â She plucks an old cosmetic kit from a dumpster and discovers it belonged to Emrys. Inventorying the kitâ (TM)s contents, she finds a spent .12 gauge shotgun shell. Her attempt to learn more about Emrys turns into a journey of self-discovery and ultimately a hard-fought reconciliation with the world â " as it is. Carol Swainâ (TM)s Gast is the rare kind of contemporary graphic novel critics are conjuring when they exult over the promise of the art formâ " a philosophically mature vision, uniquely executed by an artist wholly in control of her craft. In Gast, Helenâ (TM)s inner life is slowly revealed through a mixture of naturalistic detail and phantasmagoric occurrences.
