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Essex County
Essex County, Vol. 3: The Country Nurse
The Country Nurse & Other Rural Legends, Myths, and Half-Truths follows a day in the life of Anne Morgan, the peculiar farming communities traveling nurse. As Anne checks in on her favorite patients we are introduced to such rural legends as the boy called Jimmy-Elephant-Ears and the Essex Farmer's Boxing Club. The story delves deeper into Essex County's mythology and finally reveals how all three volumes stitch together, quilting a portrait of how loss and regret push and pull at the fabric of family in small-town life. The Country Nurse is the final volume in the critically acclaimed Essex County trilogy of graphic novels set in a fictionalized version of Lemire's hometown in Ontario, Canada.
112 pages, Paperback
First published August 5, 2008
4 people are currently reading
306 people want to read
About the author
Jeff Lemire
1,393 books3,873 followersLibrarian note:
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Jeff Lemire is a New York Times bestselling and award winning author, and creator of the acclaimed graphic novels Sweet Tooth, Essex County, The Underwater Welder, Trillium, Plutona, Black Hammer, Descender, Royal City, and Gideon Falls. His upcoming projects include a host of series and original graphic novels, including the fantasy series Ascender with Dustin Nguyen.
There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name
Jeff Lemire is a New York Times bestselling and award winning author, and creator of the acclaimed graphic novels Sweet Tooth, Essex County, The Underwater Welder, Trillium, Plutona, Black Hammer, Descender, Royal City, and Gideon Falls. His upcoming projects include a host of series and original graphic novels, including the fantasy series Ascender with Dustin Nguyen.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
September 19, 2011
Lemire finishes his superb trilogy of comic books set in the fictional Canadian county of Essex County, with "The Country Nurse". The character was last seen in the last book, "Ghost Stories" as the nurse looking after Lou LeBeuf before his death, and in this book we see more about her life and her family's life.
She is a widower with an unloving son who lives with her and spends his time at work and out of the house. She talks to her dead husband at his grave once a week and visits her mother, the oldest woman in Essex County, who can't speak once a week: in short, we see the loneliness of her life as she questions whether she does any good at all.
The origins of her family and the LeBeuf family are revealed in this book with a flashback sequence with her mute mother, and the revelations tie together the first two books in the series nicely.
The artwork, as I've said of the other books, is nothing short of masterful, haunting, beautiful, and unique. Lemire's shown with this trilogy of books how gifted a comic book artist he is and having read his other excellent books I have to say I've enjoyed the Essex County books the most. They have heart, soul, wit, beauty, and ingenuity on every page. Fans of comic books will find rewarding reads with this book and the others in the series.
She is a widower with an unloving son who lives with her and spends his time at work and out of the house. She talks to her dead husband at his grave once a week and visits her mother, the oldest woman in Essex County, who can't speak once a week: in short, we see the loneliness of her life as she questions whether she does any good at all.
The origins of her family and the LeBeuf family are revealed in this book with a flashback sequence with her mute mother, and the revelations tie together the first two books in the series nicely.
The artwork, as I've said of the other books, is nothing short of masterful, haunting, beautiful, and unique. Lemire's shown with this trilogy of books how gifted a comic book artist he is and having read his other excellent books I have to say I've enjoyed the Essex County books the most. They have heart, soul, wit, beauty, and ingenuity on every page. Fans of comic books will find rewarding reads with this book and the others in the series.
July 24, 2020
Spoiler vermemek adına hiçbirşeyi ifşa etmek istemiyorum. Kendiniz okuyun ve mükemmel bir hikayeye hazırlıklı olun. İkinci kitap Lester ve amcasına bağlayınca üçüncü kitabın da bir şekilde Labeauf ailesiyle ilgili olduğu kesin gibiydi.
İlk kitap olan Essex County Cilt 1: Çiftlikten Öyküler bir nevi iştah açıcı meze gibiydi. Konuya çok güzel girdi. Serinin ikinci kitabı Essex County Cilt 2: Hayalet Hikayeleri ise oldukça doyurucu güzel bir yemekti. Son kitap Essex County, Cilt 3: Kasaba Hemşiresi üstünde çileği de eksik olmayan enfes bir tatlı.
Hikaye çok güzel bağlandı ve hiçbir eksik nokta kalmadı. Kitabın sonunda verilen soyağacı da akılda bir soru kaldıysa onları sildi süpürdü.
Tavsiyem bu üç kitabı birden almanız ve arka arkaya okumanız. Çizgiromanların inanılmaz pahalı olduğu ülkemizde bile üçünü 30-35 TL'ye alabilirsiniz.
O dikdörtgen burunları çok özleyeceğim.
Herkese keyifli okumalar!
İlk kitap olan Essex County Cilt 1: Çiftlikten Öyküler bir nevi iştah açıcı meze gibiydi. Konuya çok güzel girdi. Serinin ikinci kitabı Essex County Cilt 2: Hayalet Hikayeleri ise oldukça doyurucu güzel bir yemekti. Son kitap Essex County, Cilt 3: Kasaba Hemşiresi üstünde çileği de eksik olmayan enfes bir tatlı.
Hikaye çok güzel bağlandı ve hiçbir eksik nokta kalmadı. Kitabın sonunda verilen soyağacı da akılda bir soru kaldıysa onları sildi süpürdü.
Tavsiyem bu üç kitabı birden almanız ve arka arkaya okumanız. Çizgiromanların inanılmaz pahalı olduğu ülkemizde bile üçünü 30-35 TL'ye alabilirsiniz.
O dikdörtgen burunları çok özleyeceğim.
Herkese keyifli okumalar!
July 1, 2017
My least favorite out of all three books.
Not as deep as the first two, volume 3 tries to swiftly link all characters together.
Not as deep as the first two, volume 3 tries to swiftly link all characters together.
August 31, 2023
This is the concluding volume of the Essex County trilogy, and it was my favourite of the three. In a way, though, that is because it builds on the first two volumes, and they help to illuminate the story here.
The combination of the immediate/personal and the historical underpinnings is perfectly balanced, and I can see why this achievement by Lemire has received widespread recognition.
Subtle yet powerful, this graphic novel trilogy won me over and was moving beyond words.
The combination of the immediate/personal and the historical underpinnings is perfectly balanced, and I can see why this achievement by Lemire has received widespread recognition.
Subtle yet powerful, this graphic novel trilogy won me over and was moving beyond words.
August 23, 2017
Least favorite of the three books, it just doesn't live up to the other two books. It follows the Nurse Anne who took care of Lou in the past book. We also see that Lester has a surprise father which i wont spoil. Overall great series, just a mediocre third book especially compared to book two about the brothers.
December 8, 2018
Kind of an o.k. way to end things.
September 27, 2020
My heart 😭
June 10, 2022
2 and half stars.
December 7, 2018
Great story and while Lemire’s scratchy, expressive and very basic drawing style tells the story effectively, I had to knock down a star simply because I do tend to love drawings that have been more laboured over. Then again, sometimes stick figures do the job too but I just kept wishing he’d made more of an effort here. It’s a completely personal point of view and really has no bearing here coming as it does from an artist who hasn’t done any work for at least a couple of months now. So easy to be critical of others, eh?
November 19, 2020
3 cildi art arda okumanızı tavsiye ederim👍🏽
June 22, 2018
This book is very good and I love it because it is well written and has good characters
November 9, 2015
I'm going to review this series as a whole and not separately, because you cannot take one book away from the trilogy. I have never been a huge fan of graphic novels, or sports related stories in general. This trilogy is both, a graphic novel that centers around hockey, specifically the Toronto Maple Leafs, so I didn't know how engrossing it would be or if I made the right choice buying it. It was lying around my house for a while before I finally picked it up and started reading...when suddenly I was on to the second volume, then the third, then I was online looking up more of Jeff Lemire's work...
Wow. What a fantastic series this turned out to be. I was fully immersed in the lives of those characters that I was surprised to get to the last page. The illustrations and artwork were so profoundly beautiful, I could feel my heart clench at a simple expression drawn on a character's face, a simple sigh, a simple bow of the head.
The first book portrays the lives of Lester, a young boy who has just lost his mother to cancer, and his Uncle Ken. Lester moved in with his uncle after his mother's death, but can't seem to get along or find any common ground between them, leaving their relationship awfully strained and awkward. All of which is beautifully portrayed through the illustrations, making you breath the awkwardness and tension between them. Lester then befriends Jimmy, an older, childlike man, who runs the local gas station after suffering an injury, which ended his professional hockey career. Lester and Jimmy love to play pretend, in which Lester is a superhero out to save the world from aliens. Lester finds he can be himself around Jimmy, even sharing with him the comics he's drawn.
The second book talks about two brothers Lou and Vince, primarily through a series of flashbacks that Lou is having, in which so much regret is depicted. This, for me, was the all time favourite of all three volumes. The artwork was so powerful and expressive that it almost brought me to tears. So many emotions, so many provocative moments. Jeff Lemire has outdone himself with this one. The artwork is very simple, black and white drawings, with very little dialogue. You could go pages without a single word written or spoken by any of the characters, but the illustrations alone would tell the story. The one page that really stuck in my mind is a series of panels, in which Lou and Vince and his son Jimmy are watching hockey on TV and you can tell the years passing, by the way they were aging from one panel to another and the way Jimmy was getting bigger and bigger, until you reach the last panel where it's just Lou and Vince watching Jimmy playing on TV. Absolutely brilliant portrayal of time passing, without having to spell it out to the reader that the years are, in fact, going by.
Another example of the brilliance of Lemire's artwork was in the beautiful depiction of Lou meeting Vince's girlfriend for the first time. You immediately know what will happen just from their facial expressions upon meeting. You can tell. You can see it from the very beginning just by that one moment they share. And yet, when it happens, it doesn't make it any less disappointing and does not take away the shame and regret that accompanies that incident.
Then there's the third volume that illustrates the life of nurse Annie Quenneville, who is going around working her shifts. The one shift the comic focuses on is Lou's, where we find out that the nurse looks after Lou, who has gone deaf, has a drinking problem and barely speaks. She also looks after her own grandmother, who has a story of her own that we end up reading about through flashbacks and memories.
Beautiful novels, all connected and interconnected in the most incredibly subtle ways making it look effortless. All the stories come together, until it climaxes right where we started - with Lester and uncle Ken.
Wonderful, wonderful series. I am so glad I bought it, and I feel privileged to have experienced this sort of brilliant work.
Wow. What a fantastic series this turned out to be. I was fully immersed in the lives of those characters that I was surprised to get to the last page. The illustrations and artwork were so profoundly beautiful, I could feel my heart clench at a simple expression drawn on a character's face, a simple sigh, a simple bow of the head.
The first book portrays the lives of Lester, a young boy who has just lost his mother to cancer, and his Uncle Ken. Lester moved in with his uncle after his mother's death, but can't seem to get along or find any common ground between them, leaving their relationship awfully strained and awkward. All of which is beautifully portrayed through the illustrations, making you breath the awkwardness and tension between them. Lester then befriends Jimmy, an older, childlike man, who runs the local gas station after suffering an injury, which ended his professional hockey career. Lester and Jimmy love to play pretend, in which Lester is a superhero out to save the world from aliens. Lester finds he can be himself around Jimmy, even sharing with him the comics he's drawn.
The second book talks about two brothers Lou and Vince, primarily through a series of flashbacks that Lou is having, in which so much regret is depicted. This, for me, was the all time favourite of all three volumes. The artwork was so powerful and expressive that it almost brought me to tears. So many emotions, so many provocative moments. Jeff Lemire has outdone himself with this one. The artwork is very simple, black and white drawings, with very little dialogue. You could go pages without a single word written or spoken by any of the characters, but the illustrations alone would tell the story. The one page that really stuck in my mind is a series of panels, in which Lou and Vince and his son Jimmy are watching hockey on TV and you can tell the years passing, by the way they were aging from one panel to another and the way Jimmy was getting bigger and bigger, until you reach the last panel where it's just Lou and Vince watching Jimmy playing on TV. Absolutely brilliant portrayal of time passing, without having to spell it out to the reader that the years are, in fact, going by.
Another example of the brilliance of Lemire's artwork was in the beautiful depiction of Lou meeting Vince's girlfriend for the first time. You immediately know what will happen just from their facial expressions upon meeting. You can tell. You can see it from the very beginning just by that one moment they share. And yet, when it happens, it doesn't make it any less disappointing and does not take away the shame and regret that accompanies that incident.
Then there's the third volume that illustrates the life of nurse Annie Quenneville, who is going around working her shifts. The one shift the comic focuses on is Lou's, where we find out that the nurse looks after Lou, who has gone deaf, has a drinking problem and barely speaks. She also looks after her own grandmother, who has a story of her own that we end up reading about through flashbacks and memories.
Beautiful novels, all connected and interconnected in the most incredibly subtle ways making it look effortless. All the stories come together, until it climaxes right where we started - with Lester and uncle Ken.
Wonderful, wonderful series. I am so glad I bought it, and I feel privileged to have experienced this sort of brilliant work.
July 22, 2017
Ve son cilt... Herşeyin anlaşıldığı ve herşeyin ne kadar çabuk kayıp gittiğini gördüğümüz bir sonlama. Jeff Lemire, alternatif çizgi romanın neden var olduğunu, neler yapabileceğini, neleri ne şekilde sunabileceğini çok iyi anlatmış. Enfes bir üçleme ile bize bir hayat sunmuş. Okuduğunuzda hem kayıp giden zamanı, hem yaşananların ne kadar önemli olduğunu, hem de anıların bir şekilde bir yerlerde bizler için beklediğini görüyorsunuz.
Çok ama çok beğendiğim çizgi romanlardan olan bu üçlemeyi gerçek bir şeyler okumak isteyenlere tavsiye ederim.
İyi okumalar.
Çok ama çok beğendiğim çizgi romanlardan olan bu üçlemeyi gerçek bir şeyler okumak isteyenlere tavsiye ederim.
İyi okumalar.
December 19, 2008
The weakest of the three books, this volume seems mostly concerned with wrapping up loose ends, although the dual timelines presented in this particular book gives the whole series a somewhat broad scope. Taken all together, this is a pretty accomplished work, even if the individual volumes vary in quality.
July 16, 2019
Tüm düğümleri çözen serinin son cildi. Anımsamalarla, geçmişe dönüşlerle ilgili tarih, not o anda düşülmemesi, sonuna kadar okuru heyecanlandırması kitabın olumlu yanlarından biri olmuş. Öykü sever biri olarak herkese bu üçlemeyi öneririm.
September 6, 2017
This final volume of Lemire's Essex County trilogy proves, if nothing else, that graphic fiction can be as depressing as any work of prose fiction.
September 3, 2022
Beautiful trilogy I really enjoyed them all the same. Loved the humanity in all of the characters.
November 21, 2020
Required reading for my Literature Now class. Saving all of my thoughts for the schoolwork.
November 1, 2011
Back to Essex County for the final instsallment in the trilogy. This title focuses on Anne the traveling nurse and switches back and forth in time between her story and that of her ancestors. She's a deeply caring woman, and a bit of a busybody, but with a heart full of gold. This volume delved into more of the mythology of Essex County and the reader gets a sense of everything's interconnectedness from resident to resident both past and present. A quick read, but one that you'll want to savor and maybe return to again in the near future. I'd recommend this volume to older teens and young adults.
Is it just me or does this series remind anyone of Cicely, Alaska and the Northern Exposure folks? I'm a big fan of that TV show and I think adults who enjoyed it would like reading thie series too. Of course, it's more dramatic, but there's still a colorful cast of characters in a rural community that's off the beaten path.
Is it just me or does this series remind anyone of Cicely, Alaska and the Northern Exposure folks? I'm a big fan of that TV show and I think adults who enjoyed it would like reading thie series too. Of course, it's more dramatic, but there's still a colorful cast of characters in a rural community that's off the beaten path.
March 29, 2018
The least of the trilogy, this one splits time between a granddaughter and a grandmother, one a nun running an orphanage in the late 19th century, the other a middle-aged nurse at Lou's retirement home today. It's still good, interesting work, but maybe a little too heavy-handed. The family tree toward the end, which spelled out the relationships between the characters from all three books. I mean, the relationships are all pretty obvious (though Ghost Stories takes a while before you can connect it to Tales From the Farm), so it's not necessary. But it's still pretty good stuff.
September 15, 2011
While this one wasn't quite as affecting as the last two volumes, I still very much liked how Lemire tied his stories together. This is a great little trilogy of interconnected stories, all of which I highly recommend.
February 18, 2016
A neat conclusion of the trilogy. I liked it less than the other two volumes because of its anthology format (it's not a single story, but several shorts wrapped up in one).
September 11, 2017
Beautiful& Touching artwork and great chain stories!
Reading this is Just like watching Fargo; simple, genuine, real, touching stories of rural small town people!
Reading this is Just like watching Fargo; simple, genuine, real, touching stories of rural small town people!
February 20, 2021
Vay anam vay neler dönmüş serhat ya.
May 29, 2017
The third volume of Essex County follows nurse Annie Quenneville, who cared for Lou Lebeuf in Ghost Stories. After the death of her husband Annie is unable to communicate with her adolescent son, who has conspicuous Danzig and AFI posters and goes out drinking. She wonders if the work she does in the County matters after the death of Lou. Annie meddles slightly in the lives of her patients inspiring Jimmy Lebeuf to encourage Ken Papineau to tell his "heroic" nephew Lester of Tales From the Farm about the identity of his father. Woven into these stories of the present are the memories of the County's oldest woman, Sister Margaret Byrne, Annie's grandmother which elaborate of the connection shared by the two families and explains the significance of the omnipresent crows in Essex County. Like the other two volumes Essex County is bittersweet and poetic with very stunning artwork.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 18, 2018
This volume of the Essex County series was not quite as compelling as the first two, but still quite effectively tied together the LeBeuf family storyline, conveying the intertwining of people, families, and relationships in a rural community where EVERYONE is connected for generations.
Brilliant character creation and development in this series by Jeff Lemire, and completely relatable, in a familial sense; from the perspective of an Ontarian and Canadian; and as a human being.
This is the first graphic novel(s) I've read (in trying to branch out from my literary go-tos); I am THRILLED with how much I enjoyed it. I will definitely be going to this section of the library in the future! A very positive and wonderful literary experience.
Brilliant character creation and development in this series by Jeff Lemire, and completely relatable, in a familial sense; from the perspective of an Ontarian and Canadian; and as a human being.
This is the first graphic novel(s) I've read (in trying to branch out from my literary go-tos); I am THRILLED with how much I enjoyed it. I will definitely be going to this section of the library in the future! A very positive and wonderful literary experience.
May 27, 2021
Volumes 2 and3 were much more emotional that the first volume, and as a result, I enjoyed them more. That doesn't mean that Volume 1 wasn't good, though. I think it was a great setup for the following two volumes. While I can't say that I quite agree with all of the hype surrounding this series, I will say that it definitely is worthy of praise and compliments. And although the art style isn't for me, it works for the story told. Jeff Lemire's later work has improved greatly, and it's always nice to go back to where it all began for the artist/writer.
A solid read.
A solid read.
January 25, 2023
Este tercer tomo conecta con los dos anteriores enseñándote que todas las historias tenían relación, o al menos los personajes. Una historia muy visual pero que me ha resultado menos emotiva de lo que suelen parecerme las historias de Lemire, no sé si es el trazo de los dibujos, mas grueso, que le da un toque más grotesco a su estilo, o la narración que ha hecho en este tomo o qué pero he conectado mucho menos con los personajes y sus sentimientos. Unos personajes mayormente desgraciados, como suelen serlo en muchos comics de este autor, que en este caso me han transmitido poco.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews