I have to admit, I was skeptical when I first heard about Peter & Max, the new novel set in the Fables universe and written by long-time Fables scribe and creator, Bill Willingham. I've never really been a fan of re-purposing content from a more visual medium, be it comics or television or film, into prose. It seems far too easy an excuse for lazy writing, allowing the author to rely on our pre-formed visual perceptions of the universe and characters in the book. While there have been some good books written in series based on Star Trek, Star Wars, etc., there have also been plenty of books that wouldn't stand up under their own weight if the built-in audience for those properties weren't already along for the ride and eager to snap up anything within a particular brand (of course, the same could be said for most mainstream super-hero comics by the Big Two, but that's a digression best left for further discussion elsewhere).
Willingham avoids the tendency to coast on the built-in audience for Fables, though, by producing a book that is engaging and engrossing in its own right, with no prior knowledge of the Fables comics required. Maybe Willingham is aided by the fact that the Fables comics series is itself a re-purposing of characters with prose origins (or at least origins in oral storytelling traditions that have long been recorded and transmitted in prose form).* Or maybe Willingham is just a good storyteller whose gifts at weaving this kind of tale transcends the medium in which he normally works. **
The book focuses on two storied characters, Peter Piper and Max Piper (better known as the "Pied Piper of Hamelin"), and splits its time a bit unevenly -- both in quality and page-count -- between the present day and the storied past. In the present day tale, Peter receives news that his brother Max has returned to the mundane world, leaves his crippled wife Bo Peep to fend for herself and sets out to find him. Along the way, we see Peter interact with a number of Fables mainstays like Rose Red, Bigby Wolf, Frau Totenkinder, and the Beast, before tracking Max down to our world's version of Hamelin, Germany. I found the present-day story to be a bit tedious, for the most part, but that was partly because the history of Peter, Max, and Bo Peep was so well-told that I couldn't wait to get back to it. The present-day parts of the story are by no means bad, and contain an intriguing comment on modernity and its tendency to reduce the past to a sanitized amusement park that could have been fleshed out a bit more, but they just don't stack up to the back-story.
Moving on to the meat of the tale, the history of the Piper and Peep families and what happens when their land is invaded by a conquering empire is nothing less than brilliant. Willingham's story of sibling rivalry between Max and younger brother Peter, which is only deepened when Peter's father passes down the magical flute Frost to Peter rather than Max, is intercut with a sweeping story of true love between Peter and the youngest of the Peep family, Bo, their separation and reunion, and their eventual conflict with Max. The tale of the Pipers and Peeps stands on par with the old tales and lore evoked, and specifically referenced, by Willingham, which is high praise indeed.
If the back-story consisted only of references to fairy tales and nursery rhymes, Peter & Max might still be an entertaining read. We learn what the deal was with Peter Piper and the pickled peppers, how Bo Peep lost her sheep, the true tale of the meeting between Peter and the Wolf, and the reason why Peter put his wife in a pumpkin shell. We also see how Max became the "pied piper," and how he came to lead away both rats and children from Hamelin in his single-minded quest to find and destroy his brother Peter. Like all good fables, this one also has a moral, one involving the dangers of envy and covetousness, and the arrogance and evil of those who believe they are owed something by the world simply by reason of their mere existence.
As I read through Peter & Max, though, I was struck more at Willingham's ability to create fully form characters we grow to care about, whether we love or hate them, and not merely to put a clever spin on some musty old stories. And while I felt the book was good throughout, it became great at the end, with a final confrontation between Peter & Max that was satisfying in every way -- it flowed logically from what came before while still bearing a real element of surprise, and it provided a real level of emotional closure and climax that a great number of books of this kind lack.
In short, Peter & Max is highly recommended for both fans of Fables and non-fans alike. In fact, if you are looking for a gift for someone who may not be into comics at all, but enjoys books like Wicked or other modern twists on traditional stories, Peter & Max would make an excellent addition to their library.
* For purposes of this review, I'll assume that most everyone reading this is generally familiar with the premise of Fables - characters from various fairy tales, nursery rhymes and other folklore have been driven from their original worlds and have found refuge in a tightly knit community situated in our mundane world.
** Cue comparisons to Neil Gaiman, which I have always resisted when it comes to Willingham, but which are not entirely undeserved. For what its worth, I think Gaiman is a better writer than Willingham, but Willingham is proving himself to be more adept at telling an engaging story than Gaiman.
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