The fun begins innocently enough: after eye surgery, Deitch had to keep his eyes closed and his head turned down for days on end while he healed. After a few uncomfortable and sleepless nights, he starts accessing his memories with shocking clarity and mines the recesses of his mind for details of his past lives. His recollection of a bizarre encounter at the American Museum of Natural History leads to another episode, and then another, far stranger, as the reader is swept down the rabbit hole and into a wonky world of Deitch’s making. Memory and fantasy blend together in a delirious, psychedelic pastiche with panoramic displays of obscure pop-culture ephemera …
Kim Deitch‘s new book Reincarnation Stories is reviewed and previewed by The New Yorker.