Read this when
Stitches
When your family never said anything, and you lost your voice for real. 'Your mother doesn't love you.' The sentence that set him free.
Who it's for
Small shows emotional neglect the way it actually feels from inside a child: slammed doors, his mother's little cough, his father's silence, his brother's drumming, and no one saying anything.
Feelings it meets
What it is
Stitches is David Small's 2009 graphic memoir of his childhood in 1950s Detroit in an outwardly successful middle-class family. Treated as a child with radiation by his radiologist father for respiratory problems, he develops cancer on his neck, and after surgery at 14 he finds that a vocal cord has been removed, leaving him nearly voiceless; his parents had hidden the diagnosis from him.
Where to find it
In print from W. W. Norton, widely held by libraries (Libby/Hoopla may carry the e-book). Not public domain. Best read in print because it's so visual.
Before you start
Heads up: Child emotional abuse and cancer.
Age: Ages 14+
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, “On Pain”
