Zeezee and me

This excerpt from a young adult hybrid novel, ZeeZee and Me, deals with the impact of divorce and intergenerational trauma on youth mental health as the protagonists Isabelle and Zeke navigate the challenges of puberty while attempting to find belonging. The story is told in alternating first person perspective. Isabelle, who has an auditory processing disorder that alienates her from her peers, falls in with a group of troublesome teens after moving from Montréal to Vancouver in the aftermath of her parents’ separation and while establishing a new persona, she makes a series of poor decisions. In parallel fashion, Zeke turns to risk-taking and substance-use to escape from his abusive father and unwelcome stepfather. The worrisome trajectory of both characters’ lives highlights the notion that without a supportive family, a teenager will become prone to unhealthy coping mechanisms. ZeeZee and Me intertwines visual text and graphic novel chapters to represent the artistic outlets that the characters employ as modes of self-expression. Isabelle is both a photographer and visual artist, and her art is her only constant friend until she meets Zeke. Zeke moonlights as an online comic artist and writes the webcomic Zatoichi in an attempt to make sense of his life. The comic is about an ancestor-spirit of ZZ (Zeke’s alter-ego) who takes ZZ back in time to visit his family at different times in the past while unlocking secrets about his father’s traumatic childhood. Creating the comic is a way for Zeke to explore and question his father’s intergenerational trauma as he begins to piece together information about his Japanese side of the family and how it was impacted by events at the close of World War II. Isabelle first meets Zeke when he defends her against his peer group, then again when he loses his best friend, and finally in art therapy class. Art is the salvation for both characters, art provides solace from the misguided adults in their lives, and art ultimately leads them to find community and each other.