Stitches: A Memoir – David Small

Small skips school, runs away from home and does the usual things most boys in his situation do. He visits a psychiatrist who is depicted as Lewis Carroll’s White Rabbit, symbolizing the rabbit hole down which he has fallen. He learns the simple but devastating truth about why his life is the way it is. A shred of support from a stranger goes a long way in eliminating a lifetime of self-doubt and misery. He leaves his parents’ home and regains his identity through art which, he says, “has given me everything I have wanted or needed.”

The dichromatic panels of the novel are a contrast of sharp, hazy and shadowy images in black, white, and a million shades of grey. A thread of melancholy slowly unravels as you turn each page, revealing both voluntary and unchosen silence, and how you draw comfort from one, while the other is a looming void that swallows you whole. You want to stop every few pages just to breathe and let the painful truth of a life gone wrong sink in, or put the book away to continue later, but you find you cannot, for you want to know that Small will be okay.

The parallel threads that run through the story are those of self-discovery as well as the knowledge that the people into whose care you are naturally entrusted may not always be looking out for your best interests. The beautifully-illustrated book ends on a deeply reflective, revelatory and redemptive note that while you may have no control over the circumstances into which you are born or how you’re treated, realizing this and walking away lies entirely in your hands. You never need to believe anyone who ever tells you that you are a failure, and you never need to be afraid to be who you really are, a message that isn’t evident to most people with disturbed childhoods until they’re much older.