Mysterious Goings On

In this fascinating conversation with Monte Schulz (son of the late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz), Alex talks about Schulz’s new novel filled with robust characters, an unraveling mystery, mayhem, innocence, and moral disintegration. Metropolis (Fantagraphics, August 23, 2022) is a coming-of-age novel with a moral puzzle at its core. This dystopian tome is narrated by college senior Julian Brehm, who lives in a war-ravaged world perverted by eugenics where those who were deemed mentally, morally, or physically unfit were banished to desolate Provinces far from where he lives his uneventful life. Thrust into facing a broader reality by the woman he falls in love with, a bohemian revolutionary, Julian, and ultimately Monte, pushes readers to question ideals while giving them the hope of love. Schulz, the eldest son of the late cartoonist Charles M. Schulz, creator of Charlie Brown and the rest of the “Peanuts” gang, is the owner of and a teacher at the Santa Barbara Writers Conference, shares: - Why he walked a