Come Again

Come Again is a 2018 graphic novel by writer-artist and North Little Rock (Pulaski County) native Nate Powell set in an “intentional community” (or commune) in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. The work explores themes of parenthood and secrets.

Come Again opens in the “present day” of 1979 at Haven Station, a “little village” established in 1971 with ten “back-to-the-land” families; the community briefly grew to twenty-six and then shrank to eight. The village is described as located “just shy of the state line” and past a town named Hallelujah Springs, an apparent stand-in for Eureka Springs (Carroll County). The main characters are Haluska, a young woman of Russian Jewish extraction whose parents fled the Soviet Union, and her son, Jacob. Jacob’s father, Gus, is an intermittent presence. Haluska has regular rendezvous in a nearby abandoned mine with Adrian, another member of the community already in a relationship with a woman named Whitney; Adrian and Whitney’s son, Shane, is best friends with Jacob.

Eight years prior, Haluska, Adrian, Whitney, and Gus were young adults, their parents (save for Haluska’s) having started the commune. One flashback shows them on a nighttime visit to a part of the hill where they could watch the stars. Suddenly, the ground gives way and dumps them into a valley, where Haluska later confides to Adrian that she had found the entrance to an apparent abandoned mine whose supporting beams sport dreamcatchers with a pentacle motif. Another flashback shows them driving along nearby country roads in search of something called the Secret Eater, a mysterious light (inspired by the Woodson Lateral Light). Haluska remembers first taking Adrian to the abandoned mine when the door closed behind her and she encountered the light inside, and the door only opened when she confessed to the light the affair she had been having. Even after this episode, Haluska and Adrian have their romantic meetings in the mine.

Later, Jake finds the same mine and takes Shane there. However, Shane disappears in the tunnels, and Jake runs to Whitney for help. As Whitney and Jake are coming down the hill to begin the search, Haluska and Adrian are walking up, arguing, with Adrian insisting that their affair needs to end. Jake tells them where Shane disappeared. Haluska tries to confess their affair to Whitney, knowing that her secret is connected to the child’s disappearance, but a wind comes up, obscuring her words. Haluska later returns to dig at the entrance of the cave only to discover that the door has vanished completely.

The next day, Jake seems to have very little memory of his friend. Soon enough, Whitney also seems to have forgotten Shane, and after Haluska returns from town, where she has been putting up missing persons posters, she finds that Shane’s bedroom has disappeared from Whitney and Adrian’s cabin. Haluska gathers everyone at the community building, an old, repurposed church, and tries to convince the people just to remember Shane, but they prove too easily distracted, with Powell rendering those affected with memory loss with less color and detail than before. The more Haluska tries to convince them, the more her words become garbled, and everyone goes off to start a picnic.

Haluska leaves Jake with Gus and goes back to where the mine entrance should be, this time with a shovel. She ends up breaking through, and deep in the mine, she negotiates with the nameless creature for the life of Shane, offering something unsaid. In the daylight, she returns Shane to the group, which is still partying outside. Whitney comes to remember her son but then asks Haluska, “And what’s your name?” The last pages show Haluska and Jake settling in as strangers in the community as some members move away.

Reviews for Come Again were mixed, especially as Powell’s previous works, the March trilogy, had received such high praise. Oliver Sava for the AV Club wrote, “There’s an undercurrent of social commentary, but Powell is ultimately looking at one woman’s attempts to make up for the mistakes of her past, taking a mystical shortcut to absolution that dulls the emotional resonance of the story.” However, Etelka Lehoczky, writing for NPR, opined, “Few creators could envision a story as unique as Come Again, and even fewer could have as much fun with it.” Sam Eifling, writing for the Arkansas Times, stated that “Powell succeeds in elevating the elements of a folk tale (and a tale about folks) into a haunting piece of literature.”

For additional information:
Clancy, Sean. “Drawn to Arkansas.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, July 8, 2018, pp. 1E, 6E. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2018/jul/08/drawn-to-arkansas-20180708/ (accessed August 22, 2024).

Eifling, Sam. “Nate Powell’s ‘Come Again’ Startles.” Arkansas Times, July 5, 2018. https://arktimes.com/entertainment/ae-feature/2018/07/05/nate-powells-come-again-startles (accessed August 22, 2024).

Lehoczky, Etelka. “Spooky and Off-Kilter, ‘Come Again’ Shows Nate Powell’s Virtuosity.” NPR, August 9, 2018. https://www.npr.org/2018/08/09/636725564/spooky-and-off-kilter-come-again-shows-nate-powells-virtuosity (accessed August 22, 2024).

Powell, Nate. Come Again. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions, 2018.

Sava, Oliver. “Nate Powell’s Come Again Is a Striking but Flawed Supernatural Drama.” AV Club, August 14, 2018. https://www.avclub.com/nate-powell-s-come-again-is-a-striking-but-flawed-super-1828303113 (accessed August 22, 2024).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas