What starts off in the viscera-rich world of the gory EC comics of the ’50s morphs into a subtle exploration of memory, as the monster of the book’s title escapes from the lab, treks to his childhood home and listens to ghosts re-enact the tragedy of his youth for over 100 pages. Then things get really twisted.

Windsor-Smith feverishly traces the roots of a single violent act backward and forward in time, across generations and nations and the border of life and death itself.

People are noticeably absent from these pages, which typically show the facades and interiors, cluttered with text boxes. (With one exception, people are only drawn as they appear in archival photos.)