![]() ![]() Small's memoir charts the author's early life to the age of sixteen, growing up in a frightening and emotionally distant family. As Small's memoir reveals, such withholding marks one important way in which culture can disable some people with illnesses by turning them into voiceless, infantilized objects of medical knowledge that cannot be trusted to be informed subjects. Largely told through the eyes of a thirteen year old suburban Detroit boy facing throat cancer and the near total loss of his voice, the book is a black and white exploration of the consequences that may befall some people with physical impairments when information about their bodies is withheld from them. ![]() ![]() Do children have a right to know about what is going on in their own bodies? Should parents tell a sick child just how sick he or she is or should they shield their children from such information? And if parents do hide the truth, what consequences can that deception have for a child frightened by the mysteries of the medical establishment, by the changes she sees happening to her body, and by the recognition that her parents are keeping something important from her? These questions structure both the story and the art in David Small's illuminating graphic narrative memoir, Stitches. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |