Stay

Roland has the perfect vacation planned for Fabienne - everything is organized, booked, and paid for in advance, with the entire itinerary recorded in a notebook. It’s going to be a wonderful week where they can discuss their future together.

But before they can even get their luggage to their rental, Roland is decapitated in a freak accident. And Fabienne, stunned and alone, has no idea how to process it. So in her daze of denial, she decides to stay and follow the itinerary as planned, as if the tragedy never happened.

Ghost-like, she wanders the tourist-filled streets, a passive spectator to the joys of others’ lives. Along the way, she meets Paco, a local vendor with some eccentric views on life and death. Being rather private normally, it isn’t hard for her to lie about the companion that never seems to be there at that very moment, but Paco soon puts the pieces together. His minor fascination with bizarre deaths has him all too familiar with the tale of the recently decapitated tourist. And he realizes this woman needs a friend right now more than anything else. So they spend a platonic week off and on, neither of them talking about what happened.

And that seems to be precisely what she needs to process everything.

A moving and mesmerizing look at life, death, and the many different ways we cope with each, written by celebrated author Lewis Trondheim and illustrated by Hubert Chevillard.