It took his uncaring and egotistical parents, who had other priorities, more than three years, before they decided to let the 'cyst' surgically remove. When David was eleven, a friend (!) of his mother noticed that he had a growth in his neck. 'Dad never there except occasionally for one of mother's dry, burned little meals mother coiled tight inside her shell of angry, resentful silence my brother in his, and I in mine.' Through this emotional and cathartic graphic memoir, David takes the reader back to his childhood in Detroit, which was not a happy one. Stitches is a poignant, sometimes tragicomic memoir of David Small, best known as the author and illustrator of numerous picture books for children. Once or twice, some quiet sobbing, out of sight.ĭad, home from work, went down to the basement and thumped a punching bag.Īnd I, too, had learned a way of expressing myself wordlessly. His father, rarely present, was a radiologist, and although David grew up looking at X-rays and drawing on X-ray paper, it would be years before he discovered the shocking consequences of his father’s faith in science.Ī work of great bravery and humanity, Stitches is a gripping and ultimately redemptive story of a man’s struggle to understand the past and reclaim his voice. David’s mother held the family emotionally hostage with her furious withdrawals, even as she kept her emotions hidden - including from herself. The resulting silence was in keeping with the atmosphere of secrecy and repressed frustration that pervaded the Small household and revealed itself in the slamming of cupboard doors, the thumping of a punching bag, the beating of a drum.īelieving that they were doing their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. No one had told him that he had cancer and was expected to die. With this stunning graphic memoir, David Small takes readers on an unforgettable journey into the dark heart of his tumultuous childhood in 1950s Detroit, in a coming-of-age tale like no other.Īt the age of fourteen, David awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover his throat had been slashed and one of his vocal chords removed, leaving him a virtual mute. Times Top 25 Non-Fiction Book of 2009Īn NPR Best Book of the Year, Best Memoir A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Best Book of the YearĪ Washington Post Book World’s Ten Best Book of the YearĪ California Literary Review Best Book of 2009Īn L.A.

Stitches by David Small