The Golden Mean

            In this third and final volume of the Griffin and Sabine series, author-illustrator Bantock brings the eerily engaging correspondence between a troubled artist and his elusive muse to a fittingly enigmatic close.

            In the first volume, Griffin & Sabine, London graphic artist Griffin discovers that a mysterious woman has been sharing the visual images in his mind for years. She is Sabine, a philatelic designer from an obscure South Seas Island, and their correspondence, in the form of delicate, hauntingly illustrated postcards and love letters, became a surprise best-seller of 1991.

            In Sabine’s Notebook, Griffin, unsure of whether Sabine is real or imaginary, his lover or his “dark angel,” flees before her scheduled arrival in London to roam the world in search of self-knowledge. Finally, in The Golden Mean, a series of sinister events leads the couple to “the philosopher’s stone” that Griffin has been searching for: the harmony and balance of emotion and imagination that they need to be together.