To the heart of the storm is an autobiographical story by Will Eisner, focusing mostly on his childhood and family background in the years preceding World War II, in which he participated. In Anachronic Order, the story tells of different episodes and events from his childhood, how the anti-semitism in New York affected him (he had a pal of German origin, and it didn´t exactly end well). He also tells of his parents, their youth and childhood. His mother, Fannie, who grew up in powerty and had to quit school, and his father, Sam, who migrated from Austria at the beginning of World War I. He also tells how he began his career as a cartoonist.
This story contains the following tropes:
- All Jews Are Ashkenazi: Naturally. Shmuel Eisner, or Sam, as he renamed himself in America, came from an Austrian Shtetl, while Fannie, Will´s mother, was of Rumanian origin. Eisner´s entire family background is Ashkenazi.
- All Jews Are Cheapskates: Rose most prominently. She saves money by using Fannie as a housemaid, forcing her out of school for saving money, and even sends her out to work for paying her ways around although she already does a lot of chores at home.
- Anachronic Order: Will reminiscing episodes from his early life while watching landscapes and towns pass by when on the train to boot camp.
- Big Apple Sauce: The entire story takes place in different parts of New York - except for Sam´s backstory, telling of his life in Imperial Vienna.
- The Flapper: Goldie, sister of Fannie ends up like this, after a childhood of neglect.
- Framing Device: The trip to a military training camp makes out the frame for the story.
- Hen Pecked Husband: Will´s uncle Louis, married to Rose.
- Jewish Complaining: Rose, Fannie´s older sister, lives on this trope whenever she is present. She complains about everything, up to and including her husband.
- So does her sister Fannie, as it turns out.
- Jumped at the Call: All of Shmuel´s friends signed up for the Austrian army the same day war was declared. It is sure to say he never saw any of them again.
- Parental Abandonment: The hardest way possible. Isaac Wolf, Fannie´s father, died somewhere "on the road", while her mother succumbed to illness when she was ten years old. Her older sister Rose took her in. The two younger siblings, Goldie and Bobby, were abandoned for real.
- Refusal of the Call: Shmuel actually migrated from Austria to the U.S. to avoid getting involved in the first world war. When the United States got involved, he married Fannie as fast as possible to avoid drafting. And then, in 1917, Will Eisner was born, securing that his father never got drafted at all.
- When his turn came, Will Eisner took the call and signed up for the next world war.
- Street Urchin: Bobby, the youngest brother of Fannie.
