One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. In Stitches, Small, the award-winning children's illustrator and author, re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside ...
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One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had cancer and was expected to die. In Stitches, Small, the award-winning children's illustrator and author, re-creates this terrifying event in a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. As the images painfully tumble out, one by one, we gain a ringside seat at a gothic family drama where David-a highly anxious yet supremely talented child-all too often became the unwitting object of his parents' buried frustration and rage. Believing that they were trying to do their best, David's parents did just the reverse. Edward Small, a Detroit physician, who vented his own anger by hitting a punching bag, was convinced that he could cure his young son's respiratory problems with heavy doses of radiation, possibly causing David's cancer. Elizabeth, David's mother, tyrannically stingy and excessively scolding, ran the Small household under a cone of silence where emotions, especially her own, were hidden. Depicting this coming-of-age story with dazzling, kaleidoscopic images that turn nightmare into fairy tale, Small tells us of his journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen whose risky decision to run away from home at sixteen-with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist-will resonate as the ultimate survival statement. A silent movie masquerading as a book, Stitches renders a broken world suddenly seamless and beautiful again. Finalist for the 2009 National Book Award (Young Adult); finalist for two 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (Best Writer/Artist: Nonfiction; Best Reality-Based Work).
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Seller's Description:
Good. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 336 p. Contains: Line drawings, black & white, Frontispiece. May show signs of wear, highlighting, writing, and previous use. This item may be a former library book with typical markings. No guarantee on products that contain supplements Your satisfaction is 100% guaranteed. Twenty-five year bookseller with shipments to over fifty million happy customers.
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Seller's Description:
Former library book with the usual stamps, stickers and labels. The item shows wear from consistent use, but it remains in good condition and works perfectly. All pages and cover are intact (including the dust cover, if applicable). Spine may show signs of wear. Pages may include limited notes and highlighting. May NOT include discs, access code or other supplemental materials.
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Seller's Description:
Good. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes).
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Seller's Description:
Small, David. Fine in fine dust jacket. Ex-library. Glued binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 329 p. Contains: Line drawings, black & white, Frontispiece. Audience: General/trade. Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Fine. 1st Edition. Norton, New York, 2009. Hardcover, 336 pp. 1st edition, 1st printing (full number line). Ex-Library Book with a few library marks, otherwise a clean tight book. About the book: Stitches: A Memoir is a graphic memoir written and illustrated by David Small. It tells the story of Small's journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen who made a risky decision to run away from home at sixteen with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist. ABHHH
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Seller's Description:
Very Good. No Dustjacket. Pp 316."With this stunning graphic memoir, David Small takes readers on an unforgettable journey into the dark heart of his tumultuous childhood in 1950s Detroit, in a coming-of-age tale like no other. At the age of fourteen, David awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover his throat had been slashed and one of his… 8vo.
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Seller's Description:
Fine with No dust jacket as issued. 9780393068573. Large 8vo 9"-10" tall; 328 pages; [SIGNED] Advance Reading Copy. Large 8vo paperback in graphic illustrated wraps. Pre-publication 1st printing. Inscribed and digned by Small on the title page to Norton's East Coast sales representative, Kristin Keith, and dated '09. Unread copy; tight bright and exceptionally fresh. Fine; Signed by Author.
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Seller's Description:
Collectible; VG. First Edition with full number line. Dust jacket and Book Near Fine. Binding solid, pages crisp and clean. Some light scuffs and dents. Bottom corners lightly bumped with no tears.
David Small's harrowing story pushes some personal buttons with me, although I think I'd still like it just as much if that weren't the case. A psychologically intense graphic memoir of childhood and adolescence, in much the same vein as Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic and Are You My Mother? Small's memoir is, if anything, even bleaker than Bechdel's. Small relates his youth in a loveless home, and the disfiguring throat operation to remove a thyroid cancer his family wouldn't for years admit to him he had. Emotional and impressionistic where Bechdel's is analytic and solidly grounded in incontestable fact, Small's style makes his work a much quicker read, if no less affecting and grim. Thanks to the ministrations of caring psychoanalysts, both authors (obviously) come out of their childhood trials alive and with renewed purpose and artistic strength. The world and the memoir genre are much the better for them both.
