Review: Come Home, Indio: A Memoir by Jim Terry

This book came to us unexpectedly. And as will sometimes happen, I’ll forget it’s in my inbox and it will take a couple of weeks to remember I’ve got new reading material waiting for me. There was no description with it, I just knew it was memoir. I didn’t expect to be enveloped in the lush ink and tense narrative that unfolds over the course of Come Home, Indio by Jim Terry.

Terry is a self-taught artist who has worked for a score of mainstream comics publishers and projects. His personal projects have roved through fictional subject matter to land here in his first memoir.

The story of Terry’s childhood living between cultures and places thrummed with the honesty of a confused child and the reflections of a man who has had time to process his experience.

He weaves between so many different narratives and points in time there are moments I had to put the story aside and sit quietly for a moment. And each of these narrative threads reveal that straining and curiosity that defines memoir.

There are some threads that are long and uncomfortable to stay in. Terry exposes the reality of how Native American families continue to be effected by the robbing and destruction of land and culture.

Grounded in his very personal trials, you can see the long fractures of colonialism in everyday America, right up to Standing Rock.

This is a comic made by someone passionate and knowledgeable about their craft. The story is written with careful control, while the use of traditional ink and brush is a burst of energy at a time when many people are moving away from the tools of the comics golden age.

Within the story, Terry talks about the process of returning to comics and inking with the recognizable ache of someone who is compelled to do this. It’s a rare quality and a privilege to be able to read it.

Published through Street Noise Press, Come Home, Indio: A Memoir should be available in print October 6, 2020.