The Long Grave (formerly Attrition) is an online graphic novel written and illustrated by Courtney Zell. Read up through Chapter 7 now. More on the way soon!
Constance Crowley is a freelance reporter whose dream of becoming a foreign correspondent has stalled out after the trauma of covering World War 1. As she chases dead-end stories and contemplates her faltering marriage, Constance receives a telegram from her former mentor beseeching her to come to Baghdad. One strange thing: the telegram was sent after her friend’s obituary has appeared in the papers.
Constance is drawn deeper into the circumstances of her former friend’s death, becoming mired in the colonial politics of Iraq and the petty rivalries of the expat community there. The most treacherous obstacles she encounters, though, are the wartime memories that lay hidden like tripwires as she chases the truth through the flooding streets of Baghdad.
A whodunnit stretching through memory from France’s Western Front to Weimar Berlin and colonial Baghdad, The Long Grave chases the interior and exterior reverberations of The Great War and examines how our personal choices settle like sediment within us– guilt, honor, revenge, hope, bitterness–silently waiting to shake free.
