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Stitches: A Memoir by David Small. W.W. Norton & Co. 2009.

About: David Small's childhood. As a young boy, he senses the unhappiness and secrets around him. At fourteen, he has an operation to remove a cyst. The aftermath involves scars and loss of voice. And loss of innocence, what is left, when he later discovers that the repeat X-rays given him by his radiologist father to cure various ailments caused the cancer.

The Good: In an interview with David Small at Smith, Small says "Ours may be the last generation to carry on the traditions of selfish, silent, confused and confusing behavior in our family."

The reader is introduced to the secrets of the Small family as six year old David visits his Grandmother. First we hear of her tough life; we meet her and find out she's not a sweet Grandma. Why are such secrets kept? Such silent pacts maintained? Fear? Shame? Or is it a twisted selfishness, because it seems easier to keep those secrets?

The ultimate combination of secrets and silence is the surgery on Small, for cancer, though its a year before he's told this. Literally silenced by the surgery (and accordingly silenced by his father, as it's the radiation treatments from the father that causes the cancer), Small has no avenue for his anger. Anger at his surgery and physical limitations, and anger at a mother who takes her unhappiness out in silence and slammed doors, and anger at a father who disappears into work and office. Scarred by their inactions and words, literally carrying the scar on his body.

Small is sent to boarding school and runs away; psychiatric help is advised, and, reluctantly and angrily his parents send him. It turns out to be the single best thing they ever done for their son, because it saves him.

At the end, even though Small has survived, and found art, and made a life for himself, there is a profound sense of sadness. Sadness for the child and teen David, who was failed by his family. Sadness for his mother, whose own mother was clearly mentally ill, who had ongoing physical problems from a birth defect (her heart was literally in the wrong place), who is a closeted lesbian. Sadness for his father, who did not mean to harm his child, yet almost caused his death; stuck in a marriage that will never bring happiness. As for Small's brother, he is practically a ghost in this book, not really present. Perhaps that is how Small felt as a child; or perhaps it is because this is a memoir, not an autobiography, and Small feels it's not his place to tell his brother's story.

While there is sadness for his parents... never does my pity trump the simple fact that both these adults failed their child. Failed in the lies they kept, and the silences, which in turn created a life and home with no emotional safety. Others can go into the art of this book better than I; but for me, part of the reason this story is so devastating and intimate is that it is told with pictures more than words.

What else? I love the idea of young David putting a yellow to

[NOTE: THIS HAS BEEN UPDATED TO REFLECT AWESOME RESPONSES ALREADY!] Okay, then, here’s the deal: A friend of mine–a friend of many of ours–is too young to have breast cancer but has it. Believe me, we’ve all done a lot of cussing about this. And although we all know money can’t cure everything, we [...]

Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies. Image, an Imprint of Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Copy supplied by publisher in support of the Cybils. Graphic Novel. Cybils long list.

The Plot: An nonfiction book about the experience of the author and his sisters as their mother battles cancer.

The Good: This was begun as an anonymous web comic; something personal that touched many people with its universal story; what happens to a family when one member is sick. How do the family members deal with it?

This isn't a Hallmark Made for TV version of illness, where by golly we all pull together and are better because of cancer! Cancer sucks. Cancer kills. And stress is hard and difficulty and can bring out the ugly.

Brian and his siblings fill roles that are familiar to anyone who has had a family member suffer thru a long illness: there is Nurse Sis (who knows it all, being the nurse); Kid Sis (the caretaker), and Brian.

Brian's role? Research Guy. "I was a ninety-ninth percentile child. In school, I read entire textbooks and retained it all. I spent months doodling. I majored in physics, worked as a chemist, journalist, and science writer. Sot there was only one thing to do when Mom got ill: read the books . . . find the resources . . . flip on the scary smart switch I was too lazy to use most of the time . . . and cure cancer."

Insight into the burden of the caretaker: "What matters is that Kid Sis lives with everything. Nurse Sis and I can go home to escape. She hears the hacking cough in the night. Listens for the sound of bone shattering on the floor. Sometimes I need to remember that."

Why does this work so well in a graphic novel format? Part of it is that the changes in the mother are more drastic because we see it; words can create a distance, as they describe; especially as they try to describe something to someone who doesn't know. It's a greater impact to see Mom in her hospital chair, hooked up to medicine, than to read about it. It's a greater impact to not realize that Mom has lost weight, lost her hair, until you see the sixth or so panel and then to flip back and notice the small changes, panel by panel.

There is humor here; the father changed from physician to hippy man with ponytail man: "Some note how easy it is to reject materialism when you have your own compound and a sizable inheritance in the bank."

Links: Kid Sis is living in Hollywood and is very, very funny.
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