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The entertainment industry feeds on the young, exploiting their naïveté and beauty and then abandoning them in a predatory environment that encourages self-destruction. River Phoenix was a victim of this system, a rising star with a troubled past and a drug habit that led to his early death of a cocaine and heroin overdose at 23. Mannie Murphy’s new graphic novel,
I Never Promised You A Rose Garden (Fantagraphics), uses Phoenix’s tragic story as a jumping-off point for a more expansive look at the poisonous roots of the actor’s home state of Oregon, uncovering how the state’s history created the culture that contributed to Phoenix’s demise. Murphy succeeds in making this history lesson feel deeply personal by starting with something as relatable as a celebrity fixation, using the need to understand Phoenix’s ending as a way to gain a better understanding of the forces that shaped his environment.