The Arrival by Shaun Tan: The Novel Cure for homesickness

Tan's graphic novel shows you how to make the best of new, unfamiliar surroundings

Ailment: Homesickness

Cure: The Arrival by Shaun Tan

Whether you're 19 years old and living away from home for the first time, or an immigrant who has left their country, perhaps for ever, homesickness is an emotion that weighs so heavily it can make life intolerable. Dissect it, and you 'll find a longing for all that was once familiar – the face of a parent, the view from the kitchen window, even the walk to the bus stop.

It makes no difference if the home you've left behind was ugly or beautiful, it's still home, and without it you feel misaligned.

Shaun Tan's graphic novel The Arrival captures this feeling of homesickness perfectly, while showing you how to make the best of the new, unfamiliar surroundings. The story drawn – for there are no words in this novel – is an old one.

A man leaves his family behind to find work in a far-away place. At first he is bewildered by the monolithic, awe-inspiring buildings of this strange city, the sinewy shapes of its alien inhabitants, and the unfamiliar lingo. He misses his family, whose photos he sticks on his wall.

But it's not long before he begins to acclimatise, finding beauty in the architecture, and a loveable hybrid creature of his own that turns up at his door one day. He sends his family origami aeroplanes which magically cross continents to find them.

You'll find you don't miss words in this story. Tan's exquisite line drawings in sepia, grey and gold – the colours of nostalgia – are so intricate and multi-layered that words seem extraneous. Previously unnoticed meanings emerge with each new experience of the book so that, like the man in the story, we feel we are gradually getting to know the contours of this territory. Thus The Arrival incorporates the loss of the old into the discovery of the new, recreating what home can be. In the end, he – and we – find that home has moved with us.

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