This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking.
David Small grew up in Detroit during the 1950s with two very distant parents who were going through their own significant struggles. Unfortunately, this perspective wasn't visible to him until he was an adult, so his childhood was spent fending for himself, battling disease and nightmares and the duality of his parents who acted one way around him and completely differently around their colleagues and friends.
When David was eleven, a family friend who was a physician noticed a growth on his neck. This growth turned out to be cancer, but this important piece of information was withheld from him. It wasn't until he'd already undergone surgeries and unearthed a secret letter that he discovered the truth about his body. When he woke up from his surgeries, he discovered that he no longer had a voice which, in turn, made his feel invisible to the world.
The graphic style pairs perfectly with this tragic story. While the author's self-portraits show raw emotion in his face and body language, the way he draws his parents and grandmother often without their eyes visible through their glasses, as well at the angles at which they're placed in the frames, gives them a hard sense of detachment. They appear large and looming, sad, fearful and angry. His mother, in particular, was an extremely mean, uncaring woman which meant that David wasn't able to come to terms with his awful upbringing until he found solace with a psychologist who was able to guide him to the truth.
Thank goodness David Small found an outlet in writing and drawing. He has incredible talent for both and this is definitely a case where a graphic component adds dimension, understanding and a depth of emotion to the story being told.
Judge the cover: 4/5
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