“On the ride home from the hospital I thought: How curious! You go in one day for a supposedly harmless surgery, that surgery turns into two, when you awake the disfiguring lump in your neck is gone, but so is your thyroid gland and one of your vocal cords. The fact that you now have no voice will define you from here on in, like your fingerprints, the color of your eyes, your name.” (p. 186)
Small, David. Stitches: a memoir. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 2009.
Genre: Autobiography
Review:
David Small’s family never had much to say to one another. His mother nearly always seemed to be locked in an angry silence and his father was hardly ever at home. His brother played the drums and he got lost in his drawings. He was a sickly baby and his father, a doctor, treated him with radiation, as was the trend at the time. Then, a lump formed on the side of his neck and after two operations his silence was no longer voluntary.
Stitches is a memoir told a unique way. In graphic novel format the poignant story of David Small unfolds—showing, more than telling the story. From his point of view, we see his family and how they shaped his life as well as his perception of them. Due to some of the content and images, this interesting story of a survivor is for the mature reader.