Graphic Novel Book Club - Ginseng Roots: A Memoir
Schedule
Thu Nov 20 2025 at 07:00 pm to 08:30 pm
UTC-05:00Location
Luna Caffe | Wilmington, NC
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Last month's book was an action-pack, blood-soaked dive into a wildly fun vampire tale, so we're slowing it down and getting back down to Earth (literally) with Ginseng Roots: A Memoir!When Blankets first published in 2003, Craig Thompson's seminal memoir about first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin debuted to rapturous acclaim. The winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, it is to this day considered one of the all-time great works of graphic storytelling. Now, in Craig's long-awaited return to the autobiographical form, comes the story that Blankets left out.
Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work, Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together—from ginseng hunters in ancient China, to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest, to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past.
Stretching from Marathon, Wisconsin, to Northeast China, Ginseng Roots charts the rise of industrial agriculture, the decline of American labor, and the search for a sense of home in a rapidly changing world.
We're meeting up at Luna Caffe at 7PM on Thursday 11/20! The book will be 30% off at the shop!
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Where is it happening?
Luna Caffe, 604 Castle St, Wilmington, NC 28401-5224, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:
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