Seeing the World Through Books

“ When you have no voice, you don’t exist.”

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childhood–literally showing, rather than telling about, the harsh life to which he was exposed by his rigid and withdrawn mother and his cold, mostly-absent physician father.  He shows that as a six-year-old child, he was remarkably “normal,” despite his constant illnesses and his occasional nightmares, with a sense of curiosity and the ability to create fun under even the most unlikely circumstances.

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.   The reader understands the horrors of David’s life though he, himself, is still innocent. At age eleven he is found to have a growth in his neck, though more than three years pass before his self-absorbed parents do anything about it.  The surgery that results 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 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.  Small, as the author/artist, allows his audience to share his life until he is thirty, showing how he has coped—or not.

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.  In keeping with his “voicelessness,” there is no visual shouting here, and in an afterword, the author adds his adult perspective to some of the events he has illustrated from his childhood.

A graphic novel such as this one 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.”

Notes: The author’s photo appears on his website:  http://davidsmallbooks.com, as does his bio.  Additional information appears about the book itself here: http://stitches.davidsmallbooks.com/

Powell’s Books has an interview with Small, not to be missed (really!  Small reconnects with his brother , whom he has not talked to for fifty years, through the writing of this book!):   www.powells.com.

A 23-page preview of the book can be found on  www.scribd.com