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:
Fair. This copy has clearly been enjoyed-expect noticeable shelf wear and some minor creases to the cover. Binding is strong and all pages are legible. May contain previous library markings or stamps.
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Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
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Seller's Description:
As New in Near Fine jacket. Book Small quarto, hardcover, as new in near fine green, red and tan decorative wraps. 329 pp. plus notes. This prize-winning children's author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing yet redemptive graphic memoir. For starters, 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.
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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
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.
