Crazy for You

by Paul Theroux, Steve Lafler (Illustrator)

In this double feature of love and obsession, two short stories by the acclaimed novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux are adapted into comics in a feat of vision only veteran cartoonist Steve Lafler could accomplish.

Genres: Graphic Novels

208 pages

Published March 17, 2026

About the author

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work is The Great Railway Bazaar (1975), a travelogue about a trip he made by train from Great Britain through Western and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, through South Asia, then South-East Asia, up through East Asia, as far east as Japan, and then back across Russia to his point of origin. Although perhaps best known as a travelogue writer, Theroux has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his novel The Mosquito Coast.

He is the father of Marcel and Louis Theroux, and the brother of Alexander and Peter. Justin Theroux is his nephew.

Reviews

[Chad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two oddball stories with fugly art. They are adaptations of Theroux's stories. One is about an art collector who gets a thrill by destroying the art he's purchased. The other is about a business man in Bangkok who meets a trans person and falls in love, lying to his wife, his job and this person along the way. The story just stops. There's no ending or resolution. It made the whole thing just feel pointless. The artist draws some real fugly faces. Everyone just looks off.

[el · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was pretty boring, which is interesting because it makes me want to read the short stories they're based on to see if they're just as boring... not sure why they wouldn't be. I'm echoing the first reviewer for the most part, though I enjoyed the simplicity of the illustrative style.