Stitches – a review
In the hands of a less capable artist, David Small’s Stitches would have failed. Much of what doesn’t work in the novel is why I didn’t want to read it in the first place. Yes, that’s right, I really did not want to read one of the most talked about books of the year (incidentally, I also don’t want to read The Photographer or Asterios Polyp either – so, maybe it’s just me). I didn’t want to read Stitches because, for the most part, memoirs bore and annoy me. It’s a rare memoir that manages to be honest. Often time I feel like the author is trying to hard to be damaged or pull some memory from toddlerhood that inevitably involves some metaphor like a dangling spider or a grinning Jack-in-the-Box or something.. Small does this. His prose and story is overfilled with parents who are little more than monsters, a crazy grandmother who is every southern Indiana stereotype and weird dreams.
Not that I think Small is lying. I’m sure he’s not. However, it does, or should I say would, read like a formulaic childhood from hell turn to adult success if it weren’t for the artwork. Small recognizes that he tells better stories when he’s silent. He’s been silent a long time. A ragged surgery for a cancerous tumor leaves him without a vocal cord. At 14 he is physically trapped in his own mind, unable to express himself. He becomes his family’s quiet observer, an inconsequential scapegoat for his mother’s anger.
Small is at his best when his character don’t speak. When his mother thwaks shut a cabinet, or his 6 year old self literally dives into his artwork. His drawings carry their expressions so perfectly that often I could just skip the text. I didn’t need to be told that the boy was angry, depressed and intrigued by his new speechless life- I could see it and in just one panel. In fact I wish I could draw this review just to really give the sense at what art can do that a stumbling, rambling bunch of akward text cannot.
So, thanks Bill for forcing this one on me.
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You’re welcome, Sadie! (Snort!) Didn’t know you had a problem with injured child memoirs, but I will keep that in mind for future reference. (P.S. You probably already know to stay away from Mommie Dearest! lol)
You’re right about Small’s artwork, and I’m glad you did enjoy that aspect of the book. I was blown away by many of the drawings. In addition to the scenes you mentioned, I was also taken with the therapist as White Rabbit, the young boy almost melting and then wrapping his arms around the therapist’s legs when he hears the truth, the look on the mother’s face when her secret is revealed, the son caressing his mother’s face at her death bed.
OK, that’s all. At least my recommendation didn’t completely warp you, like Ganz has me! Yuk! Yuk!