Casually arrogant and infatuated with the notion of duality — he is never happier than when imposing his simplistic, black-or-white worldview on others — Asterios finds his New York City apartment destroyed by a lightning strike. What happens next, as he leaves his old life behind and builds a new one in a small Midwestern town, is the familiar stuff of contemporary literary fiction — how it happens, however, is what makes Asterios Polyp such a singular creation and a quintessential example of what the graphic novel — and only the graphic novel — can do.