The beauty of reading a good book often lies in leaving things behind — your cup of hot coffee is now cold, the echoes of a not-so distant time (or a mother's yell) soon follow, until the realisation dawns that you've left yourself behind. The world is back in order until you find the next good read. But Sabrina is beyond that. It is more than just a riveting account of a young woman's disappearance and its aftermath. And unlike most novels we encounter, this one doesn't settle on a middling question like, "Who is responsible?" Nick Drnaso's graphic novel delves into the face of an orderly world, which leaves us hanging on grief, insignificance and the brevity of life. It wasn't a long while ago when we thought words were the most powerful form of expression, but then along came a 29-year-old Chicagoan cartoonist who knows better. Extracts from an interview.

Beverly, your debut novel is a grim look at suburban life, where you rip through the facade of normalcy. Sabrina, in a way, does the opposite. How did you transition from Beverly to Sabrina?
I remember being eager about Sabrina even as I was finishing Beverly. I had a certain approach to drawing comics in place and I felt like I was ready to write a more involved story. I can't really remember if I was thinking about how the two books would pair with each other; neither of them were really planned out or conceptualised in that way.