Stitches: A Memoir

David Small's STITCHES: A MEMOIR is the most moving tale written in graphic novel format that I've encountered since being totally wowed by Craig Thompson's BLANKETS back in my years on Best Books for Young Adults.

Between the spare text and the 1,400+ illustrations through which David Small tells the story of a nightmarish childhood and his eventual escape from his parents and his demons, STITCHES is a landmark work of literature for young adults that is destined for core collection status.

David Small grew up in Detroit with parents who usually treated him as if he were either invisible or a nuisance. He coped by turning to art and escaping into books.

As a child, David was frequently sick. As he describes it:

"I was born anxious and angry. My sinuses and digestive system didn't work as they should have."

His father, a radiologist, administered many a series of high-dosage x-rays that were supposed to alleviate David's sinus problems. By age eleven, a growth became visible on his neck. Even while his parents were buying expensive new automobiles and home furnishings, and despite the fact that his father worked in the medical field, David's mother would attack David for saying anything about having the growth taken care of.

Finally, after three and a half years, he was sent in for surgery to have the growth on his neck removed. It turned out to be cancerous, requiring radical surgery that included the removal of his thyroid gland and one of his two vocal cords. David was literally silenced.

"A crusted black track of stitches, my smooth young throat slashed and laced back up like a bloody boot.

And so it is so fitting that Small's memoir regularly moves into wordless segments in which the beloved Caldecott Medal-winning illustrator lets his artwork do the talking. That artwork is composed entirely in black, white and all shades of gray. I love how I came to intimately know of Detroit in the nineteen fifties. I also love how Small does perspective in a fashion that you, as well as young David, are repeatedly looking upward toward the zombie-like adults in his life.

"With only one vocal cord the sound you make is...ACK."

My student wrote of being blown away by talent, insight and emotional resonance in great graphic novels. If you want to experience an ultimate example of such qualities in a soon-to-be-heralded graphic novel, then you definitely need STITCHES.

Parents, Teachers and Librarian's may recognize David Small's name because he has written and/or illustrated picture books for young children such as IMOGENE'S ANTLERS. This book however is a memoir, a story about his childhood and it is written for adult readers.

Illustrated in shades of gray and black, this memoir is told in comic strip style (graphic style). The colors are fitting and help set the tone of this sad, dark and sometimes scary story. A fact of life is that adults are complex people and not every adult's life is wonderful even in the United States of America. Even in the 1950s, a time that is looked back on as an ideal time for children and families, the time that is the setting of this story, things were not perfect or ideal for every family and child apparently. Sadly, sometimes children are born of parents who have problems and issues, who are flawed and make mistakes and sometimes those mistakes hurt their own children.

I was moved to tears by this memoir. As a child Small was obviously had good powers of observation and an emotional sensitivity to be so aware of, and affected by the problems in his family, by things said and done or not done by his mother, father, and grandmother. Disconnection from an always-working father and the awareness of the family's tight finances are two examples of the real life adult issues that clearly affected Small as a child. Of course he was greatly affected by the secrecy about his throat cancer and surgery which left him mute (something openly discussed in the marketing materials).

I'll not divulge other details in the story lest it spoil the book but if I could I'd give more concrete examples of the deep issues this story contains. This story provides food for thought and some issues within it could make for spirited discussion, such as with a book discussion group. Although I read through it in under and hour I know I could discuss the topics with others for a good two hours or more!

Another component in the story that may be of interest to some people is that the story tells of Small starting to draw at age two and using drawing for pleasure and as an escape even when it seemed to not be praised by the adults in his life. As the story wraps up we hear of how drawing and illustration has become his career.

After reading the story all I could think of was bad things happen to good people and unfortunately sometimes those people are young kids. It is uplifting to know that some kids who have grown up in adverse conditions or bad life experiences and those with imperfect families can get through it and get on with their life in spite of the problems they faced. Despite knowing that fact, my heart ached for the boy David Small.

This is powerful storytelling. The illustrations especially the body language of the adults and the dark tones clearly convey emotion. The constant viewing of gray and black tones and the continuing negative body language that permeates frame after frame almost overlay the entire story like a heavy blanket, giving an additional layer of pressure and darkness to the story above and beyond the detailed story that is being told at each segment of the book. Replicating that type of steady tone in a book told in traditional word format stories is not as easy, in other words, the way that Small illustrated his story in both images and colors is masterful. Small really pulled off a feat with his memoir. Bravo David Small!

I want to underscore one more time for parent readers of my book reviews and because I often review children's books--- STITCHES A MEMOIR is a book for adults or older teenagers. Just because this book is told in graphic format and features the life of a boy does not mean it is recommended reading for children.

[...] David Small's graphic memoir, Stitches, portrays a couple of parents who certainly fill the Larkinesque bill: a moody and occasionally violent mother whose disciplinary actions are often cruel, often unjustified; a father whose professional judgment unwittingly causes permanent harm to his son, but whose reluctance to confront the evidence of that harm leads to even more serious damage overall. Small portrays both the literal and the imagined horrors of his childhood (the nightmarish consequences of encountering preserved fetuses in a pathology lab, for example)with powerful effect in his finely controlled graphic work. He manages to create an effective rhythm in his visual narrative, with substantial sections left wordless, though they convey exactly the settings and situations evoked; he also uses minimal but eloquent facial drawings to characterize the family members and others who affect his young life.

The difficulty with Stitches, however, is also its strength; Small portrays the pain and desperation of an abused child, and he gives the reader a sense of the motives and psychological pain suffered by the parental abusers, as well, but at the end, we are left with simple facts--the child was abused by an emotionally unstable mother and a distracted, neglectful father who has trouble dealing with the consequences of his own acts, which may have been well-meaning but that were finally destructive. And that is that. The facts of the matter sit on the page--we sympathize with the child and with the man who lives with the results of his mistreatment (in several senses of that term), but I find it hard not to ask for more. Is this book simply an act of revenge, or of self-justification? No doubt many grownups, looking back on bad childhood experiences, would like to gain some satisfaction from belated retaliation. In this case, Small offers photographs of the parents we have learned to know through his strong drawings, with captions more or less summarizing "the rest of their story," but this does not add depth to the narrative, just more details that we can add to the scales.

A memoir usually exists to explore and possibly validate the meaning of the experiences portrayed; in this case, we get the experiences, but even two readings of the book do not convince me that the portrayal is linked to any deeper understanding--my feeling is that we are told "here's what happened to me, isn't it awful, even though I survived to tell about it." This leaves an empty feeling.

David Small's Stitches is a strange beast. Equally engrossing and fleeting, the memoir provides an intriguing reading experience that's a little hard to get a grasp on. The narrative fumbles a bit, tripping over some very interesting familial anecdotes on the way to examining the crux of the story, the operation that both took Small's voice and gave him his freedom. In fact the book is rife with dual natures, in the art, the pacing, and the plot.

Small's artwork is very powerful. His grasp of caricature is reminiscent of Jack Davis and Harvey Kurtzman's work (Humbug (2 Volume Set)), though he seems able to achieve a similar level of character with fewer brush strokes. It also reminds me of the more personal work of Sam Kieth (Four Women), a world that balances between the imaginary and the all too real; all spindly appendages and awkward postures. At the same time as you make your way through the story the art becomes increasingly sparse leaving the reader with less and less to grasp onto. It's a bit counter productive as at the same time Small begs the reader to pause on pages and panels that give the eye little to study. Some of these story beats fall flat.

In fact this is my main issue with the novel. The second half of the book just slips through the readers fingers too fast as the time-frame is sped up. It's almost as if Small builds to the midpoint climax slowly, dreading the eventual anguishing moment when he undergoes his operation, and then runs as fast and as far away from that revel as he can.

In the afterward, David Small remarks on some of the aspects of his mother's story stating, "If this had been her story, not mine, her secret life...would certainly have been examined more closely." Though that line refers to a specific plot point in his mother's past, it goes a long way to describing the shifts in focus in the comic. Small seems as reluctant as the cartoon version of himself to dwell on his family, yet he doesn't seem to want to go too deep with his own soul bearing.

Regardless the work is breathtaking and completely worth the slightly uneven journey.

Never having read a graphic novel before (or graphic memoir), I decided to pick this up on the advice of a friend. Immediately different from what I think of as the prototypical super-hero-centric books, this one is about the author, David Small, as a young boy, and adolescent having to endure a childhood at the hands of his emotionally abusive mother and cold, taciturn father.

Set in Detroit in the 1950s and 60s (I assume), the book deals with tough issues of parental neglect, questionable medical practices of the era, mental illness, and most importantly, the harsh impact of family secrets. Make no mistake--the book is difficult to read, for all of young David's difficult experiences. The one solace was being able to flip back to the rear dust jacket flap to see Small's beaming photo as an apparently well-adjusted adult. In the end of the story, redemption and freedom reign--and not just in the author photograph.

While the book may only take you an hour to read, you'll find that your eyes will linger on and revisit many pages in order to drink in Small's brilliantly done drawings, many of which are dreamlike and poetic in their rendering.

Since Small primarily has focused on children's illustrations, I know that there isn't a huge source of his other material to read through like this. However, his book has opened my eyes to a whole "new" genre, and hopefully even more author/illustrators will follow in his path.

Autobiographical coming-of-age graphic novels are their own little subgenre; this new addition definitely adds to the field. David Small is a professional illustrator, primarily of children's books, who's decided with this work to take the leap into darker, more adult-oriented fare, and tell the Story of His Scarred Childhood in three hundred scrawled pages.

He makes the leap marvelously. The ink-wash, scribble-line illustrative style he uses here is as evocative and chilling as the story he tells with it.

I think some reviewers are going to leap at this work and think "finally, a serious literary work, done as a graphic novel," because the subject matter is the sort of thing typically considered the realm of literary fiction. And that's valid, though there are other graphic novels that I consider more deserving of "literary" accolades*. The real charm of this work, though, is in its artwork; Small's scrawls are brilliantly evocative of emotion, and the scattered dream sequences are immensely enjoyable.

Read this, enjoy it; but enjoy it as a *graphic* novel, as much for the art as the story. The story is good; the art is fantastic.

*This work is going to get compared to _Maus_ a lot, because Maus is the only other thing like this that a lot of reviewers will have read. _Stitches_ is very good for what it is -- young artist overcomes scarring childhood story -- but it doesn't have the emotional impact of _Maus_, perhaps because the first three-fourths of _Stitches_ is so unrelentingly brutal, without _Maus_'s moments of charm and hope.

EDIT: I finally remembered whose art these drawings remind me of, especially in the dream sequences. Jules Ffeiffer, the illustrator for Norton Juster's _The Phantom Tollbooth_.

A graphic memoir about a boy's experiences growing up in a middle-class family in the 1960s and 70s; his own physical suffering and the reasons for it are entwined with a family history of dysfunction and toxic secrets that is detailed and moving, but never overwhelming or whiny or fingerpointing.

While this horrible story is on some level typically American (problematic grandparents, parents with an eroding marriage, social change that the family can't keep up with), what I found most impressive was the way it was mediated through the graphic techniques. That is, in the 1980s we read a lot of memoirs like this one that described terrible childhoods, but in which the adult's need to cling to the perspective of the child was overbearing and immature. Here, the use of the drawings allows us to experience fully the perceptions of the child without the author insisting on the moral superiority of that stance. The drawings allow him to show simultaneously how he was a victim but to distance himself from claims of victimhood. What could have been a story about how he was abused by his family both intentionally and unintentionally turns into a narrative of how the adult world looks from the perspective of a child. Thus the emotionality of the narrative is mediated in ways that allows to sympathize as readers without being clobbered over the head by the author's victimhood.

Highly recommended.

This is a childhood memoir rendered in art and words. The author's childhood is the subject. Born to a medical family, it is a great irony that the main thing he is deprived of, other than love, is medical treatment. His father is a radiologist with a stay at home mother. The father and mother deny the child surgery for years while buying themselves boats, Cadillacs, furniture and every other adult geegaw in existence. It seems to me that the child is growing up in the 1950s or 1960s in Detroit judging by the cars, clothes, houses, and such depicted. I am tempted to hate the mother more because she is there every day. She overflows with venom and conceals her rage only from her peers. However, the father's false bonhomie and careless indifference are just as bad year after numbing year. Rescue for the boy comes through a psychiatrist. I've never heard of a psychiatrist doing this before but this one says to the boy that the reason for the problems he is having is that his mother doesn't love him. Psychiatrists are never supposed to do this. You are supposed to reach these conclusions on your own. However, this provides such a springboard for recovery for the boy that maybe that "rule" needs more study. This is a terrific graphic novel. It reminds me of "Maus," the classic graphic novel about victims of the Holocaust. I did not find this depressing but I did find it haunting.

Visit my blog with link given on my profile page here or use this phonetically given URL (livingasseniors dot blogspot dot com). Friday's entry will always be weekend entertainment recs from my 5 star the store reviews in film, tv, books and music. These are very heavy on buried treasures and hidden gems. My blogspot is published on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.

Stitches by David Small is yet another graphic memoir about a boy who has a surgery that leaves him unable to speak. That Small has told his story visually adds a layer of meaning to his experience that a traditional memoir could not have managed. That he manages to create a literary graphic memoir is remarkable. Visually, the tone of the text is established early, as the surreal angles and images are softened through washes of grey and tones of black and white.

The story Small shares is sad and visually relentless. There are not a lot of words. There do not have to be. In a home where silence simmered beneath the surface, the reader is forced to experience the sadness through the images as deeply as could occur through the speech of the people who move through his life. His mother and father are brutally portrayed, grotesque caricatures of parents while his brother remains a minor, enigmatic presence. How Small copes through the silent rage is poignant and his triumph is clear from the beginning; he finds a remarkable voice in his art which conveys the conflict of his feelings in the face of confessions--both intentional and coincidental. In so many ways, the individual players in this family drama are doomed, another facet of the story that is told most clearly through Small's drawing style.

What I loved most about this graphic memoir is the sheer poetry of the visuals. So many of the pages are overflowing with drawings that evoke the type of emotions poets try to define through a line. This book is a poem, a memoir, a visual nightmare. It is stunning, in the purest meaning of that word as I was left silenced, sighing in perfect contentment.

Stitches: A Memoir, is exactly what it purports to be. It is a memoir of the early life of artist David Small. And what a painful, emotionally scarring life it must have been. Small recounts a difficult childhood devoid of love, burdened by distracted and distant parents, and punctuated by a childhood cancer caused by his own father.

Alas, then, that Stitches doesn't quite hit the emotional buttons a story like this deserves to hit, because I *wanted* to feel drawn into this bleak (yet all too real) world more than I did.

This was certainly no fault of Small's grasp of the medium, which is excellent. His art has a loose simplicity about it, at times even a seeming sloppiness (undoubtedly deliberate), that is stark and vivid and entirely appropriate. His storytelling, which is so vital in the world of sequential art, is crisp and clear, and his compositions make excellent use of the page. Artistically, Stitches is a triumph.

The tale itself is unrelentingly bleak, with only a small glimmer of love late in the story of Small's early life. That's okay, though. It's not as if the reader doesn't know what he or she is in store for. We know we're about to be depressed.

Where Stitches falls just short of complete excellence is in the writing. While the art is simple and stylish in an impressionistic way, the writing is just simple, made up of direct, bare narration and equally direct dialogue. It often works well enough for the dialogue -- witness the mother's outburst on 226 and 277, which painfully underscores her loveless nature -- but the narration does little to add to the overall work. As a medium, comics excels when the words and images combine into a greater whole. In the best comics, theirs is a symbiotic relationship. That doesn't happen here. The narration feels almost superfluous, and thus distracting. Yet removing it would make Stitches an even lighter read than it already is. (Its 320 pages whip by FAST, even with a reader like me, who lingers on and absorbs each panel.)

The result? A reader kept at an emotional distance from the story.

However, Small makes excellent choices when it comes to allowing the visuals to tell the story, and he knows when to allow the imagery to get abstract. His instincts here are superb. Small's outstanding skills in this regard work hard to carry the weight of the emotional narrative here, and make up for any shortcomings in the writing.

I know many the store readers consider 3 stars a bad score, but let me be clear: It's not. Not to me. As far as I'm concerned, if you enjoy graphic literature and like memoirs, if you enjoy the genre in which Stitches dwells, it's worth a read. Small's visual work is impressive and the narrative has the potential to be powerful to certain readers. I may feel Stitches falls just short of its potential -- and it does -- but I'm glad to have read it.

As a fan of graphic novels I found myself attracted to this one when I heard of it and was offered the opportunity to read it. I was not familiar with David Small's work until this book.

The art is just great, and quite appropriate for the intense story being told. Through his drawings he makes the reader feel the sense of loneliness and sadness of the protagonist of the story. Seeing the young kid immersing himself into his drawings was to me, a very poetic way of showing how he felt.

As many reviewers have stated before, 'Stitches' is a memoir of David Small's childhood and his battle against cancer during his adolescence. He was emotionally abused as a kid living in a house in which silence was an everyday thing.

I would like to say more but I do not intend to spoil any further the story, the last pages of the book however, got to me. The way the story develops acquires an even further intensity with the art in the book, many of the most important moments in the book are text less drawings, not an easy thing to achieve that however, is done several time throughout the book. I have read it a couple times already since I got it and don't doubt I'll read it again, every time there are further details I find that I didn't catch on my first reading.

This graphic novel reminded me of the movie "Persepolis", it is similar in the sense that is a memoir drawn in B&W.

When I read Stitches, I had to keep reminding myself that this was a 'true story'. I even double checked the back once. I usually find autobiographical comics to be not as interesting as fiction, but this was astounding. In addition to the dark tale itself, the art is astounding, something I don't usually notice. I often find comics have a hard time balancing great art, pacing, and story, but this one nails it. The art was actually so good it inspired my girlfriend (also an artist) to do a new series of drawings!

If possible, I'd recommend against reading up on this book. When I read it, I had no idea what it was about other than it was dark, and I'd suggest keeping it that way. Unfortunately, even the inside cover tells you what happens. I suppose you have to tell people something other than a 'dark tale', but I'm happy I didn't know what was going to happen beforehand.

Small's story is very horrifying, and the art goes with the tone, it's very dark and anguish.
I really didn't enjoy reading it, not because it was a terrible memoir, but because it's so hard to read. It's not a book for everyone.

As a fan of graphic novels, I am constantly frustrated by my (mostly) literate friends who STILL refuse to read them because they are "comic books". One of the problems with convincing them otherwise is... that they are, to a certain extent, right. "Graphic Novels" IS a misnomer. The best of them are GRAPHIC, to be sure. BUT THEY ARE NOT "NOVELS"! The much more accurate comparison is to films. A good graphic novel should leave its audience with the feeling of having seen a really good piece of cinema. "Stitches" is a good graphic novel. "Stitches" is a REALLY good graphic novel. David Small's memoir of growing up in a family that makes the Borgias seem "functional" is both heart-rending and PROFOUNDLY (ultimately) hopeful. The pivotal point in the book occurs when young David is operated on for throat cancer (which he is not told he has!), but that is not the "stitches" of the title. Those are the rough, ugly, tiny threads that hold us, however unwillingly, to others in our family, and hold us,as well, together. For fans of ANY good story, to be sure, but, more important, for fans of the really great film-makers of today, I cannot recommend this highly enough.

David Small's father was a crazy doctor who tried out weird experiments on his kid. David's mother was an ugly, cranky, unfeminine woman who had a beef with everything. Then David had to have his thyroid removed and his vocal chord came out with it. Now he coudn't speak.

I'd read some of the books David Small illustrated. One of them was Imogene's Antlers", about a girl from a rich family who wakes up and finds she has...you guessed it...horns! One by one, her snooty, upper class parents bring in doctors, hat makers, and other craftsmen who proceed to rip off her parents. Now I see where Small got the ideas from. His mother couldn't accept her son as he was (or anything for that matter) and everything in life was a hardship.

There are many memoirs about miserable childhoods; Angela's Ashes, The Liar's Club, A Child Called It, Black, White, and Jewish, etc. But the only good ones in this category are the ones with some humor. Stitches has enough humor to avoid being a melodrama.

I normally don't read graphic novels (or graphic autobiographies, which this is), but when we added this to our high school library, I had someone question the appropriateness of this volume for our collection.

Within minutes of starting this book, I was drawn into the dark and tragic childhood of David Small. The black and white and gray-toned water colors propel the story along. I finished the book in one sitting. While disturbed by the events of Small's childhood, his dysfunctional family (going back a few generations), and the events surrounding his own cancer, the positive spin is that he finds his "voice" through drawing and the therapist who recognizes his talent.

While this book will have a limited audience in our high school library, it is worth having on the shelves. I'm sure for some students it will be just the right book to give them hope.

David Small's father was a crazy doctor who tried out weird experiments on his kid. David's mother was an ugly, cranky, unfeminine woman who had a beef with everything. Then David had to have his thyroid removed and his vocal chord came out with it. Now he coudn't speak.

I'd read some of the books David Small illustrated. One of them was Imogene's Antlers", about a girl from a rich family who wakes up and finds she has...you guessed it...horns! One by one, her snooty, upper class parents bring in doctors, hat makers, and other craftsmen who proceed to rip off her parents. Now I see where Small got the ideas from. His mother couldn't accept her son as he was (or anything for that matter) and everything in life was a hardship.

There are many memoirs about miserable childhoods; Angela's Ashes, The Liar's Club, A Child Called It, Black, White, and Jewish, etc. But the only good ones in this category are the ones with some humor. Stitches has enough humor to avoid being a melodrama.

I normally don't read graphic novels (or graphic autobiographies, which this is), but when we added this to our high school library, I had someone question the appropriateness of this volume for our collection.

Within minutes of starting this book, I was drawn into the dark and tragic childhood of David Small. The black and white and gray-toned water colors propel the story along. I finished the book in one sitting. While disturbed by the events of Small's childhood, his dysfunctional family (going back a few generations), and the events surrounding his own cancer, the positive spin is that he finds his "voice" through drawing and the therapist who recognizes his talent.

While this book will have a limited audience in our high school library, it is worth having on the shelves. I'm sure for some students it will be just the right book to give them hope.

Setting a feeling of foreboding from the very opening scenes of this graphic memoir with gray washes and spare but evocative line work, Small has created a harrowing and ultimately deeply moving work. Each page is holds its own fascination as the book gradually builds in intensity to some incredible revelations. Small's ability to express pain, anger, and even fleeting happiness in a few lines and shades of grey constantly intrigue and captivate. The words there are provide detail and flesh out the memoir, but the illustration alone would convey the story almost as well. The faces of madness he confronts when seeing his grandmother enraged or his mother losing her control are both monstrous and wonderful; creations of pure emotion, simply done, but convey an almost physical impact. Small finds himself trapped in a life where he becomes a pawn of parental experimentation and dementia, a life that I am amazed that he was able to survive. After reading this work, I am astonished that Small was able to become a functioning member of society, much less an award winning artist. This one will stay with me a long time.

All I can say after finishing STITCHES by David Small is wow! Stitches is Small's graphic memoir and it's hard to say much about the story without giving things away. David Small was born and raised in Detroit by his radiologist father and his homemaker mother. His mother was born with some health problems and raised by a troubled mother and it affected her for the rest of her life.

David had an extremely difficult and troubling childhood, mainly because of his mother. There is one scene in Stitches that will be particularly disturbing to book lovers. David's family suppressed things and did a poor job of communicating, especially with the kids, so David discovered things the hard way. I'm amazed that he's gone on to have such a great life.

I thought STITCHES was an amazing book! The story is horrifyingly compelling - just as you think things can't get any worse, they do - and the illustrations are fantastic. I think having color in some of the illustrations would have improved the book somewhat, but that's only a minor complaint. The book is great as it is.

This was, at times, a difficult story to read. Not because of the writing or the artwork, but because of the content. However, much like drivers passing an auto accident, I could not look away. I cannot think of a better way for this story to be told. The stark grayscale artwork lends atmosphere to the story itself. Literally seeing the looks on his parents' and grandmother's faces reinforced the emotions of each scene. Simply reading about the scars on his neck was not nearly as traumatic as seeing them, and it was this very trauma that was needed to transport the reader into the story.

I had intended to read this story in several sessions; but as sometimes happens, I could not put it down. I knew that I rushed through it some to find out the end of the story, so I took the time to read it again. The second time, I paid more attention to the drawings and how they reinforced the story. I would recommend reading it this way because if you get caught up in the story you might miss the art work and you DO NOT want to miss this artwork!

When I first heard about this book, I basically heard everything about it. That made me not want to piick it up at first, because I thought I had been given the heads-up on everything there was to know. Little did I know (or expect) that feeling to be wrong, and little did I expect myself to enjoy the mood of this book so much. It had a sense of foreboding and sadness in it, with the parents and the hidden things that are kept from our main character, and the way the main character feels has a contagious effect. When the sense of betrayal filled the pages, for instance, I felt like I was in that room as well and I felt like I could through those same mental stones. The same can be said for other feelings that went through the character - when something was felt, the book made that feeling real. That made it worth the read and it made it worth the time spent reading it.

Great writing, great read, good stuff.

It is really recommended.

The biggest complaint I hear about alternative or independent comic writer/artists is that they spend an inordinate amount of time `navel gazing'. In other words, they center their stories on themselves with emphasis on the sadness and pain in their lives. Their medium becomes a black and white means of release, a cathartic outlet to resolve some inner turmoil while the reader becomes a surrogate psychologist sharing in the sorrow. If an artist is going to travel down this well worn path, and the genre of autobiographical suffering is a very well worn path, you better set yourself apart or risk being lost in a sea of sames. Stitches is a very good book but I've read this story by other artists who were likewise talented.

The book centers on the dismal relationship between artist/writer David Small and his mother, a woman with an icy dimeaner that borders on sadistic. Mr. Small does an excellent job of capturing the seething hatred (yes hatred) between himself and his mother. There is a moment when the poisonous relationship between mother and child reaches a crescendo thanks to some blunt words from a large talking white rabbit and the author deftly uses images of rain to convey the release and washing away of years of built up pain. On the other hand rain is perhaps an overly obvious metaphor for sorrow and renewal. Clearly David's mother suffered from deep psychological problems that she inherited from her own mother who may exceed even her in terms of being psychotic.

In my mind what David Small lacks is a hook, something to differentiate himself from the sea of alternative comic artists out there. When I think of alternative artists who stand apart I think of Jim Woodring or Cathy Malkasian or `Kaz'. I've really enjoyed Chris Ware in the past and consider him a genius but I finally had to stop reading his books because they are just too darn depressing. Stitches may be even more depressing because unlike Chris Ware's stories this one is non fiction. The final two pages of the book include actual photos of David Small, his mother and his father. His father isn't nearly the villain his mother is but he won't be winning any father or the year awards. I liked that the readers were given a chance to see the real people behind the characters of the story. I'm not sure if Mr. Small chose the photos of himself and his mother but his is definitely an unflattering selection.

So the big question is do you want to be a part of David Small very public yet personal psychological therapy? I congratulate him for having the courage to open up but I can't lie and say that I was riveted in reading about his worst childhood traumas. The art is quite good but despite his technical competence I never felt like Mr. Small found a way to distinguish himself from other alternative artists. Stitches is in no way bad but it's unlikely I'll remember it much past the completion of this review.

This is a graphic autobiographical novel about the author's upbringing in the midwest with distant and sometimes abusive parents. Because of the graphic format, I was able to read it inside of an afternoon. Though it was a brief read, it was difficult to read about David's mistreatment at the hands of his parents, specifically his mother and grandmother. Nonetheless, I did enjoy reading this and am starting to enjoy the graphic novel format.

David Small in his graphic memoir "Stitches" is the explorer of the deepest of human's inner life. He tells his heartrending story about his illness and the process of being used for scientific experimentation by the "Soldiers of science" and their modern weapon X-Rays. He mockingly portrays the Nazi-like soldiers as "heroic men featured in the ads in Life magazine" (p 27) and their message that the miraculous X-Rays which could see through everything even metals would cure anything. The result of this experimentation is that he develops cancer then loses his voice after the procedure: "I soon learned, when you have no voice, you don't exist." (P212)
Demonstrating this terrifying scientific experimentation, Small is forced to take a journey into the enigmatic world of unknowns, digging irresistibly for the truth. Through his painful invisibility, despite the loss of his youth, Small discovers a magnetic voice inside him. Poetry of drawing! Through his empowering voice, his invisibility becomes visible in the eyes of those who know the art of seeing. His voice becomes essential as Antoine de Saint-Exupery describes in the Little Prince: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye".

The subversive and subjective elements in "Stitches" remind us Francisco Goya's paintings with social truths as images in this book of art could be reminiscent of our own life in the essence. The connection is clear and representative by one's sensitive memory of childhood with a symbolic centipede shape stitches running down one's neck. A lonely soul who dreams Gilgamesh- like dreams and nightmares, imagining a fetus running after you, looking at forbidden books, falling in love with characters in the particular books...and standing up for your own truth.

Although Small describes the tragedy of his own life in relation with his family, but it can be expanded to a broader perspective, a broad reader and to a larger humanity such as those who live under tyrannical societies, those living in wars, being invaded by foreign sources, even prisoners who are treated as strangers in this world.

The novel punches you repeatedly with effective punch lines such as: "I gave you cancer", "Your mother doesn't love you" and "Do you know what our utility bill is going to look like?" Or the illustration of sound languages in his alienated house: the slamming of kitchen cupboard doors Whap, Whap by his mother...or the sound of his father pounding on the punching bag: "Pocketa, pocketa....and Ted beating on his drum: Bum, Bum, Bum...and his own language, getting sick.

"Stitches" has many layers. It brings to mind great literature such as Woyzeck, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Little Prince and Charles Dickens' stories...More than anything else it resonates the story of our own life.

were a form of abuse -- the abuse that comes from not telling your child what is really wrong with him -- of not telling your child why he is in the hospital and of not telling your child what to expect when you come out of the anesthesia and cannot speak.

This book is in Manga form -- yet it is NOT a comic book, nor is it a fast read - the drawings bring an eeiry, gothic, brooding quality to each frame, and tell of the incredible abuse, silence, anger, hanging heavily over David throughout his childhood.

A psychoanalyst as a white rabbit - who was always looking at his watch, yet who made a breakthrough for David -- the eleven pages of rain -- tears, a catharsis, a realization, a coming-to-terms.

David confronting his parents about the cancer and being told to shut up.

The revelation about his mother -- the many revelations actually, two of which David walked into by mistake.

The dreams of the gothic cathedral and the entrapment. The final dream of the radio controlled car and the all-to-famliar faces.

And the relief and release and joy of being on his own, making mistakes but enjoying his quirky friends, unusual surroundings "I felt more normal around them and less lonely". Those were the happiest pages in this book.

After reading this book I have the utmost admiration and respect for David for being so brave in the middle of such horrible abuse.

And I can identify with his "Is grandma Crazy?" question -- because my sister once asked me the same question about our mother after one especially vicious and utterly confusing scenario. And I too responded with a "Shhh!!Don't ever let her hear you say that!!"

Live well and prosper David.

After reading this, I hugged my wife and children several times and called my own parents.

The stark and simple horror of the author's childhood is rendered in an art style that is at once realistic and stylized, enabling the action to go from reliable narrative to fever-dream so easily that it's deeply upsetting.

This is the story of a boy who has his throat removed by parents who never told him - never planned to tell him - that he had cancer. But it's worse than that. A bone is thrown to his mother at the end of the story, but she is a heartless woman and his father, though fun-loving and pleasant enough in public, treats both of his boys with disdain.

While not a very hopeful story, it is well-told and honest, as candid a survivor's tale as I've read.

I picked up this book today because it was recommended by someone, but I am not sure who. I am certainly glad I read it. It is a book that you will read in one hour. It is a memoir of David Small's life. The book is full of illustrations, since David Small is known as an illustrator for The New Yorker and many children books. He had a life dealing with an abusive Mother and Grandmother and with health problems. I think this book was wonderfully illustrated, created and very memorable. I highly recommend it. I think the content is more for High School Students and Adults than for younger people since he does deal with mature subject matter.

Stitches by David Small Joe Drouillard, Orchards foster parent November 10, 2009

This illustrated novel, set in Detroit in the 50s is the tale of an upper-middle class family. Dad is a successful radiologist. The mother stays at home and takes care of David and his older brother.

But mother is angry. It is a quiet anger most of the time. But it can come out with abandon, like a volcano, always simmering under the surface, but occasionally exploding. The brother plays drums in the basement, only coming out to goad and tease.

Father is distant. He works long hours, and is not home much. He makes good money, but it is always spent on cars, boats, etc.

There are many tragic scenes in this book. Anger, teasing, put-downs, meanness. Vacations are spent with his mother's mother, who is even worse than his mom. David sinks into an Alice in Wonderland world of his own design. He draws constantly, creating new worlds to escape his own.

When a growth is discovered on David's neck, it doesn't get operated on for four years, because his mother doesn't want to spend the money. When it keeps growing larger, finally they break down and schedule the operation. When David awakens from the operation, he has had half his vocal chords removed by the surgeon trying to remove the cancer. There are huge stitches, leaving a long, permanent scar on his neck and jaw.

They don't even tell him he had cancer and almost died. But he discovers it himself one day by sneaking into his mother's rollup desk and reading a letter she is writing to her mother.

David begins having strange dreams of being abandoned in an old church building, moving from room to room, hallways and doors getting smaller and smaller. His parents find him regularly in the morning sleeping under the dining room table. He takes off one night in one of the family cars and gets arrested for driving without a license. He is sent to a military school. He runs away three times.

At 15, in spite of the expense, they send him to a counselor, "a waste of money". David walks into the first appointment with a chip on his shoulder. "Are you going to hypnotize or drug me?" "Do I have to lie down". The counselor says his mother says he has been doing crazy things, and David says "I guess so". The counselor says "Nonsense, a boy who has had cancer, a boy whose parents and doctors did not tell him he had cancer . . . a boy who had to find out the truth on his own, is this crazy? No, it is sad, but not crazy."

David finally is in an environment where he can speak and listen to the truth, where things are not hidden. He is also given encouragement to grow and exercise his talents. His counselor does not hide that his mother doesn't love him. But he helps David to see beyond his mother's mean spirit to appreciate perhaps why she is the way she is, because that is part of the truth too.

From then on, Three times a week with a counseling office where free speech is allowed, where the truth can be both spoken and heard, things begin to make sense.

David begins stitching his life back together.

Stiches: A Memoir is a very touching examination of the author's childhood growing up around his family. Without giving the story away, the author journeys back to his adolescence to examine what his life was like as a young boy. The art is touching and really adds to the element of growing up in a dysfunctional family. As you learn more and more about the family and their lack of cohesiveness, it was hard not to feel for the author. As the author grows in age, you can really tell the toll that the both parents took on the young man and what impression it made. I would definitely recommend this. It's not a happy read necessarily but it's a very interesting coming of age story.

This is a grim, bleak auto-biographical recollection of David Small's adolescence told through graphic novel form. This book provides a great example on the power of utilizing this graphic storytelling medium because Small's gray-toned and washed out water color'esque art style significantly enhances the dread atmosphere of his familial environment far better than prose on its own. While the tale itself is nothing you haven't read/seen before the masterful visuals elevates this narrative to a whole different plane. Certainly give this one a try if you've ever doubted the narrative capability of the graphic novel format.

David Small's autobiographical novel, told through drawings, is a powerful tribute to the resilience of one boy's spirit despite every possible attempt by his family to destroy it--and him. I had never read a "graphic novel" before and had no particular expectations when I began it, so I was unprepared for the directness with which this novel engages on an emotional level while still exhibiting many of the qualities one expects in the best written fiction. David Small illustrates his dysfunctional childhood--literally showing, rather than telling about, the harsh life to which he was exposed by his rigid and withdrawn mother and his cold, mostly-absent physician father.

Throughout childhood, David sees himself as the star of an Alice-in-Wonderland existence, wrapping a yellow towel around his head, at age six, to resemble Alice as he plays, and, like Alice, accepting even the weirdest experiences--and the most bizarre family members--as part of his everyday existence. As the reader sees his disturbed mother and grandmother develop, and reads about his even more obviously disturbed great-grandparents, the visual unwinding of David's life evokes strong, emotional responses, tantamount to that of a black-and-white film. At age fourteen, he has surgery that leaves him literally speechless for months, one vocal cord excised. But he is also emotionally "speechless," unable to express his anger at his family's long-time treatment of him. His nightmares, straight out of Wonderland, are terrifying. It is not until he meets the "White Rabbit," that he begins to understand his anger and accept it as justified.

Throughout the book, Small shows a sensitivity to the needs of the story while resisting the temptation to be melodramatic--the events of his life need no such embellishment. His use of symbolism---a fetus in a jar, X-rays, Alice in Wonderland, a crucifix, a religious building, a wind-up car---broadens the scope and allows the author to tap into a common pool of knowledge to achieve greater universality. His use of foreshadowing and irony, especially regarding his illness and that of his mother (who was born with her heart on the wrong side of her body), intensifies the nightmarish qualities of the novel, and his ability to capture body language and gesture conveys feelings without requiring words.

A graphic novel such as this gains from its clear, visual depiction of events, but it also risks appearing to be so over-the-top that it resembles a comic book, rather than a serious novel. Small walks that tightrope nimbly, achieving considerable power and great emotion without descending into bathos. His chronological gap between ages sixteen and thirty, however, raises questions for the reader/viewer, since those years, skimmed over very quickly, offer an opportunity for the author to give important information about exactly how he dealt with those turbulent years. The ending, a dream, feels a bit artificial in comparison to the honesty of the narrative, but it does tie up the loose ends and connect many of the themes and motifs. David Small's Stitches has been a unique experience for me, one I recommend to anyone else who may be curious about how a graphic novel "works."

this little illustrated memoir caught my eye at a bookstore recently and became an impulse buy. it fits that "tragicomic" vibe, telling the author's recollection of a childhood ignored by strict and distant parents. it's not a full nightmare of physical abuse that we've read elsewhere -- but that's part of it's power: this story feels so much more (sadly) common. and the simple but expressive illustrations (all black and white, btw), convey a subtle emotive power that compelled me to read the book in one sitting.

David Small's Stitches is a graphic novel memoir about his childhood. The story, illustrated in deep gray scale, is cast with the heaviness of an unsettling household. The novel form and structure work with the story line creating accurate depictions of an intolerable repression and repeatedly abusive family life. We are immediately presented with the slamming of doors, the banging of drums, and the silence of conversation and communication which punctuated Small's childhood. As the story develops we learn that Small's family structure is broken, harsh, and potentially dangerous. In the grips of the thrilling story we find ourselves caught, much like David, in family histories, secrets, and repression.

His story, told in the form of various memories at various ages 6, 11, 13 and so on, are interspersed with his chilling dreams that mimic the terror of his family life. These small parts of the novel seek to give voice to the child's voice and mind that had been over looked throughout Small's life. The novel demonstrates Small's mastery in graphic story telling. His deep use of metaphor and expression in his drawing highlights the plot and compound the narrative. Small often draws himself in the shadow of others, underlining his internal and physically vulnerability. At times he uses images of his urban Detroit environment to illustrate unspoken/unrealized pain. These moments remind us that Small is extremely deliberate in his images and is interested in the way that visuals enhance his narrative. In these moments we are able to see into David Small the boy and uncover a voice that had been silenced for too long.

Stitches is difficult in its clear and permeate pain. Small's story gets to the heart of the complexities of an abusive family life. His novel, as other reviewers have mentioned, leaves out many parts of his family's story and his own. These negations are, in this reviewer's opinion, intended to mimic the feeling of a child's point of view in such an overwhelming environment. Essentially, we are unable to understand the entirety of Small's family situation because as a reader we are also limited by Small's misunderstandings, perceptions, and unknown secrets. I believe this tension is an important part of interacting with a novel about child abuse and vulnerability. The family truths that have not been unearthed to us are able to haunt us, and that is precisely the feeling that Small had as a child. Eventually Small is able to work past the pain of not knowing and to heal on his own, free of the expectation that all of his family histories will be easily understood and attained. This message of potential freedom from the past, the release of the fixation of trying to figure out the why and how, is the hope that Stitches ends with.

My psych instructor recommended this book. It's an excellent story, with a broad range of feeling. From a psychological/Bowenian perspective, I think it illustrates intergenerational patterns very well, and shows how dysfunction can seem "normal" if you are embedded in the system.

I'm curious if the author is familiar with Bowen, because he highlights key aspects of his family so precisely.

But you don't have to be interested in psychology per se to appreciate this book. The other reviewers speak well of the other aspects of Stitches.

Stitches is a wonderfully original work of art. It's painful to read in part; also touch, sad, funny, and full of life. This is a book that you can hand to someone who has never read a graphic novel before and confidently know they will finish. It's not what you'd call a fun book, but you may find that you want to reread it again a few months later. Very hard to pigeon-hole, Stitches is a truly great book that everyone should read. You won't regret it.

David Small had one of those childhoods that make me so grateful for my loving parents. This is an extremely short graphic novel that only takes about an hour to read. It was really difficult, because I hate thinking about children being neglected. Like Pam, I was grateful that the ending was somewhat positive.

Both the story and art of Stitches is interesting. The story is Melancholy more than sad and has a nice quite quality to it. The art is interesting and vaguely menacing while still being attractive to look at. Though a sizable book I found myself reading it all in one go as I found the story and images so compelling. An interesting book that I am glad I gave a chance to.

Very interesting. It seems natural that an award-winning children's illustrator and author would choose to do his memoir in graphic novel form, but at the same time it's so different from anything I've seen/heard of before. The ending seems a bit too good to be true, but then again, I suppose it follow real life, and this time there actually was a happy ending.

A quick read, and overall, not too depressing (since it ends on a happy note).

I love graphic novels and loved this one. This memoir captures the particulars on one unhappy and tragic family story. I love that the drawings are deceptively simple and yet stay with you for a long time after you read the book. Makes me what to give the author a hug.

I'm stunned that anyone would give this less than a five star review. I found this in a used bookstore and was entranced by the beauty and electricity of the drawings. The story is heartbreaking and encouraging at the same time. Brilliant storytelling and perfectly paced.

Brilliant--this is coming from a newbie to graphic memoirs, so perhaps I'm naive. At any rate, there is one scene about 3/4 of the way through the book that will crack your heart into a million pieces. FYI: you can read this thing in about 40 minutes.

Much better than average graphic comic covering the autobiography of a sensitive child and adolescent subjected to multiple family and medical traumas. Moves fast and holds one's interest all the way through. One of the best I've read in quite a while!

Stitches: A Memoir is a surprisingly moving tale of a young man overcoming enormous obstacles and dysfunctional family setbacks, all told in the form of a graphic novel. I was often frightened, amused, enlightened and encouraged by the author's courage to not only tell this difficult story but to convey it in such heartbreaking illustrative details. And who can forget the shocking zinger of a twist that we learn about his mother at the end...a detail that is not simply conveyed for shock value. I'll look forward to future graphic tales from Mr. Small.

I've read Stitches several times. I always enjoy it, or rather I find it an emotionally impactful, beautifully illustrated, and truthful memoir. The rough watercolored images give the piece a feeling of memory, and capture the darkness of the story well. Graphic novel memoirs are my favorite genre of literature, and Stitches is up there with what I consider the best of the genre.

Stitches: A Memoir is a surprisingly moving tale of a young man overcoming enormous obstacles and dysfunctional family setbacks, all told in the form of a graphic novel. I was often frightened, amused, enlightened and encouraged by the author's courage to not only tell this difficult story but to convey it in such heartbreaking illustrative details. And who can forget the shocking zinger of a twist that we learn about his mother at the end...a detail that is not simply conveyed for shock value. I'll look forward to future graphic tales from Mr. Small.

I've read Stitches several times. I always enjoy it, or rather I find it an emotionally impactful, beautifully illustrated, and truthful memoir. The rough watercolored images give the piece a feeling of memory, and capture the darkness of the story well. Graphic novel memoirs are my favorite genre of literature, and Stitches is up there with what I consider the best of the genre.

For fans of David Small's great illustrations (childrens' books, the New Yorker) this book is long overdue and undeniably seductive. Small's intriguing point of view, his genius use of black ink, and his deftly sardonic references are in full form here. His brave and honest telling of a challenging childhood will surely serve to endear his many childrens' book fans. What a treat to be able to wallow in a full-length David Small odyssey. Stop reading this review and go order your copies now. Great holiday gifts for the angry young men, relieved older men, fans of Detroit and anyone else you know.

Piercing and fascinating insight into the world of the very sick adults he was forced to call his parents. The way the images and text flow is like something out of a motion picture horror movie... and yet, you know there is a shining beacon of intelligence piercing the darkness - the author himself... recreating his tale from the depths of his being and sheer talent, the artist who returned from the "hero's journey". Thank god for that psychiatrist!

This is an autobiographical graphic novel about a guy who had a hard and weird childhood. Raised by an angry, unloving mom and a dad who wasn't much help, had some bizarre medical problems, lived in a world where almost all adults seemed to be cruel and incapable of warmth. The story is somewhat interesting, the drawings are great, the atmosphere is strong. In the end, though, the book left me with a bad taste in my mouth. It feels wildly self-centered. It feels like, in the end, the whole book is there just so the writer could say, "Look what happened to poor me." Or, truer, "Look what happened to poor, fascinating me." The story is there, but a far-reaching scope that would have made it more compelling, isn't.

In this book, David Small "depicts a childhood from hell in this redemptive graphic memoir" to quote from the back cover. I think "cathartic" would be a more appropriate word than "redemptive", but otherwise that sums up this autobiographical work nicely. The book is undeniably powerful, skillfully written, and drawn with great sensitivity.

But nevertheless I found myself left somewhat cold by the book. Yes, the childhood Small depicts undoubtedly qualifies as "from hell", with an angry, withholding, emotionally abusive mother, a distant father, and an operation for throat cancer that left him scarred and unable to speak for several months. But through all his travails, the boy typically reacts with a hard, narrow-eyed glare. At the age of fifteen he's sent to a psychiatrist (charmingly drawn as the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland) whom Small credits with giving him his first experience of something like parental love. But I got the feeling that Small would have done okay without any magical therapist. That skeptical, hard-eyed stare would have seen him through any amount of emotional abuse.

And in my opinion, that hard-eyed anger is the shortcoming of the book. Small's reminiscences are one-dimensional; there's almost nothing in the book beyond an angry stare back at the memory of his mother. I got the impression of an angry, humorless and self-obsessed little boy who grew up to draw an angry, humorless and self-obsessed autobiography. Creating it may have been a healthy therapeutic exercise for Small, but that doesn't make it a great book.

Superficially, Small's book has much in common with Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, but I feel that "Fun Home" comes out far ahead in the comparison. Bechdel's characters are complex, three dimensional people, and her memory carries a far broader range of feelings than Small's, making for a richer and more rewarding autobiographical memoir.

The story about the authors childhood is a bit sad and depressing ( although portrayed well) this book was not what i thought it was going to be so it left me extremely disappointed...i was reminded that i wanted to read this book the other day when i was strolling through my the store.com wish list, i searched for it at my library and hooray they had it....needless to say im glad i borrowed it from the library because i would have been sorely disappointed if i spent 17 dollars on it...it took me maybe an hour or two to read the art work in mediocre and the story line is well; sad; but also not very engaging and jumps around a lot..i would pass on this book.

Graphic novels are scattered throughout my personal library. I prefer to think of these works as just another way of telling me a story/conveying information. So, my graphic novels don't hang-out together in a "colorful" little bunch. Instead The Walking Dead stands beside World War Z,Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 is pressed against King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and Maus is stationed right next to Schindler's List. All this is simply to say, graphic novels should receive the same consideration as work that we consider "legitimate literature." So, after reading Stitches, I asked myself, "Has this piece earned the right to share company with some of my most cherished 'rite de passage' 'autobiographies' (Girl, Interrupted,The Bell Jar (P.S.),The Things They Carried etc...)?"* The answer is ... well no. But is it a gripping tale? Maybe?

Even with pausing to appreciate the artistry, Stitches is a pretty quick read: for me, about an hour. Shouldn't a life (an amazing life, at that!) take longer to explore? And, much like another reviewer noted, there are huge gaps in time that I would have "liked" revealed. Even still, I suppose that the bottom-line resides in that non-word: "relateabilty." I simply could not relate to the piece (at all). (Which is fortunate, I suppose). I would assume that most readers will not be able to connect with this work (again, at all) ... how many lives are actually this convoluted? (Mom's a closet-lesbian, grandmother's insane/homicidal, father's abusive/a philanderer ... and there is a general pall of absolute desperation over the general family). (By the way, if you know anything about this prize-winning author/artist, these are not spoilers!) Is it tragic? Certainly. Is there a note of triumph over adversity ... no, not really (but who needs one). Even in the quirkiest autobiographies, one tends to find a strain of universality ... not here. And, maybe it's not necessary to create a gripping work. Maybe a work can stand alone if there's "something more" ... but there isn't "something more" here. Just pain. (And this, again, is no critique of the author ... he cannot help or change his past).

When I was reading this work my mind kept returning to one phrase, "Airing dirty laundry." We (as a society) have become so enrapt in this "cult of sharing," in this "destroying the boundaries between private and public," that we have transcended sharing as a means of helping others and moved into full-blown narcissism. Personally, I think that Small's work had a cathartic impact on the artist (look at the detail invested in the full-page depiction of the neck scar) but that it should have been stowed in a safety-deposit box along with diaries/photo albums/scrapbooks ... it is intensely personal (on a level that I found terribly invasive ... as though the reader is an intruder in this miserable life).

This is (also) no critique of the artistry: which has moments of brilliance. (And, no one can argue that his children's work is gorgeous). It's merely a warning that "you" (the potential reader) may "get nothing" out of this piece ... you may not even be able to understand it. It is individual to this author.

In sum, I actually blame the publishing-house for this piece. Knowing the business, I'd have to suspect that they asked to publish it ... and now, well, here it is. For everyone to consume. Odd.

*Yes, I am aware that Plath and O'Brien claim their works are not autobiographical (even though all evidence indicates otherwise).