Close Enough for the Angels

by Paul Madonna

Emit Hopper was a one-hit wonder—twice. First as a rock and roller in the 80s, then as a literary darling in the 90s. Now it's twenty years later, and despite his desire to remain a simple laundromat owner, stardom has found him once again. As he’s drawn back into the limelight he meets Julia, a former celebrity chef with an enigmatic past. But when she disappears while hiking with two other women, Emit finds himself chasing down a mystery that promises to leave him forever changed.

From the artist and author of All Over Coffee and Everything is its own reward, Paul Madonna uses his signature blend of drawing and storytelling to deliver a beautiful and entertaining novel filled with suspense, surprise, and humor. 

With over one hundred lush and haunting drawings, this full-length, character-driven story is a fresh and innovative reinvention of the illustrated novel.

Genres: Fiction, Graphic Novels

540 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and author whose unique blend of drawing and storytelling has been heralded as an “all new art form.” He is the creator of the series All Over Coffee, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years, and the author of seven books,  All Over Coffee ,  Everything is its own reward (winner of the 2011 NCBA Award for best book),  On to the Next Dream , You Know Exactly (finalist for the 2022 Golden Poppy Book Awards), and the Emit Hopper Mystery Series, Close Enough for the Angels , Come to Light , and The Commissions . Paul also collaborated with award-winning author Gary Kamiya on the best-selling book Spirits of San Francisco .

Paul's drawings and stories have appeared internationally in numerous publications such as the Believer and zyzzyva, as well as in galleries and museums, including the Oakland Museum of California, the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum, The San Francisco International airport, and the William Blake Association in France. Paul was a founding editor for therumpus.net, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco, and frequently lectures on creative practice. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD magazine.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The drawings are gorgeous, the story is captivating, and the writing is engaging.

This was my introduction to the work of Paul Madonna, a Bay Area artist, and I can safely say that I will be seeking out more of his work in the future. Emit is a gently sad guy who, from the outside, has led a very successful life, but who nonetheless struggles to find meaning in his day to day. He teams up with a similarly damaged woman — a celebrity chef turned flaneur. Together they litigate their ennui while trying to avoid the pitfalls of pasts that still haunt them. There's a pretty strong undercurrent of Buddhist sentiment here with the concept of past lives playing a thematic and structural role in the layout of the story. I enjoyed the philosophical digressions even if they didn't feel entirely fresh. Still, Madonna's characters are engaging and the plot keeps you turning the page. The interplay with the drawings is pretty great too.

If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!

[Maryann Kandlik · Rating 5 out of 5]

First heard about this book and the author's exhibition via an article on a news blog site and the illustrations piqued my interest. Downloaded the e-book version as that was the only available and began reading. After 18 hours over 2 days I finished one of the most brilliant books I have read in years. It swept me in like no other story has in years. The beautiful illustrations are just the added bonus. Even in an e-book version their richness of detail evoke emotion & imagination. I felt like I could almost feel the atmosphere of the location in the pictures. I only hope that a print version will be available soon because I will be first in line.

[Sheila Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this book! I was a fan of Paul's series in the Chron and am totally blown away by what he's doing now. Clever, witty, surprising, smart, sweet. A great story. And those beautiful drawings!!! Nobody draws like Paul Madonna.

[Thekelburrows · Rating 4 out of 5]

Doesn't hold up particularly well as a novel, but -oh man- the art in Close Enough for the Angels is stunning.

[Rolf Kirby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up at random in a library and read the first chapter, and decided to check it out. There is none of the usual Library of Congress and publisher stuff in the front, just the text and drawings. For awhile that carried a sense of mystery, and the narrative was good enough to keep me going until the end. It was, though, often melodramatic, and sometimes seemed forced. In particular, when the characters started yelling at each other I felt like I was reading the script to a bad TV show. The ink and watercolor drawings are mainly quite detailed scenes from Thailand, of statues or shrines or grottoes, or cities, with a good sense of perspective. I liked them a lot. Interestingly, the pictures rarely show people. The only people in the drawings are those getting tortured in the Thai hell called Narok.

[Kristine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. A quirky, curious, oft times wacky ride tumbling through time and space, it offers thoughtful and perceptive insights into art and life along the way. The clever plot structure kept me turning pages late into the night! And the exquisite, often meticulously detailed drawings interacted with the story and engaged my emotions in striking and surprising ways. I'm thrilled with this development in Paul Madonna's work and I want more!

[Jane Kriss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book. A physically beautiful thing to hold and look at, the story is well-crafted and engrossing. I admit to having binge-read it over the course of 3 days, captivated by the drawings, characters, themes, and writing style. The combination of writing and artwork is dynamite - a totally new genre and a real treat.

[Jester · Rating 1 out of 5]

Throw me a preserver and save me from drowning in my own tears of boredom. For someone who can clearly write strongly, I am unable to comprehend how this book has no story or emotion. Your parents died. "K."

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a beautiful book! I love Madonna's drawings, which is why I wanted to read the book, which did not disappoint because it includes ~100 of his drawings! Gorgeous. This is a very late '90s-feeling San Francisco book, which brought me back to those days. Story of some artistic folks trying to find themselves and figure everything out, in a fairly engaging voyage of self-discovery. Totally worth checking out for the artwork, although the pix in this book are mostly from Thailand and Japan, not SF.

--"Roy took a swig of vodka, shook his head. "I don't regret it one minute--but then again, I ain't the regretting type. People like to thin it's the things you do, or the things you don't, that you regret. When it's got nothing to do with the things. It's all about the you. If you're a person who's prone to regret, it doesn't matter waht decisions you make. You're going to regret them. And if you're not prone, well--" he held up the bottle "--then life is sweet tea." (p 161)

[Lisa]

When looking at other Paul Madonna books on goodreads, I noticed this one and requested it from the library. The cover of this book emphasizes something that I didn't realize from the goodreads title: that it's a novel. I wasn't interested in the story and just wanted to look at the pictures, which were pretty interesting and had similarities to the author's other works, while at the same time being very different!

[Mirijam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Close Enough for the Angels is an incredible story about ordinary (yet extraordinary) humans who are tied to ripples laid out for them in an ocean. And yes, I know that doesn’t make any sense.

I wanted some scenes stretched out. At other times, I didn’t want to turn the page. Evidently, I managed. The artwork in this book inspires me but it also inspires the book.

The ending was cute, but the kind that makes you want to take it from the top… Which is to say, back to the beginning.

[Gnuwayve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never experienced a genre quite like this. The combination of writing and drawing is so intertwined, the reader is not sure where the story ends and the images begin. The compelling tale is part mystery, part love story, and the twist related to the entire series of lush drawings is such a surprise and delight.

[Irenka · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5- This is a really interesting book, I love the characters, the art, the personal themes as well as the mystery, and the different timelines (which I usually hate) work great here and make you want to keep turning pages. The end has really great things to it but also one aspect that feels too easy and thus a bit disappointing. In general a great great read.

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

A couple of self-absorbed, trauma-ridden rich people travelling around Asia and San Francisco. Mixed in with a little bit of Buddhist philosophy, the whole wheel of karma, cyclical life path stuff. Art was cool and the story had some...interesting turns to it, but I didn't find myself particularly moved. Meta-fiction. The narrator/author's comparison of himself to J.D. Salinger is apt.