Cannon

The graphic novel opens on wreckage: a restaurant in ruins, with tables and chairs flung everywhere, on a sweltering night in a Montreal heat wave. In the middle of it stands Cannon, sweating with regret. She was meant to be closing up for the night, and instead she has destroyed the place. The scene looks like something out of the horror films she loves. Cannon is stoic and unfailingly well-behaved, so the outburst is completely out of character. Her best friend Trish is the one who turns up to get her out of there. The two are queer second-generation Chinese women who were each other's lifeline as nerdy teenagers stuck in the suburbs. Now they are in their late twenties, and what they mean to each other is harder to define. Their friendship has settled into a routine of weekly evenings, cooking dinner and watching obscure Australian horror films together.