A Publishers Weekly Top Ten Best Book of the Year
An Amazon.com Top Ten Best Book of 2009
A Washington Post Book World’s Ten Best Book of the Year
A California Literary Review Best Book of 2009
An L.A. Times Top 25 Non-Fiction Book of 2009
An NPR Best Book of the Year, Best Memoir


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.

At 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. No one had told him that he had cancer and was expected to die. 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.

Believing that they were doing their best, David’s parents did just the reverse. David’s mother held the family emotionally hostage with her furious withdrawals, even as she kept her emotions hidden — including from herself. 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.

A 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.

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FINALIST 2009 - National Book Awards

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"An emotionally raw, artistically compelling and psychologically devastating graphic memoir of childhood trauma. . . . Graphic narrative at its most cathartic."
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"[A] profound and moving memoir. . . . Smalls tells his story with haunting subtlety and power."
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"A triumph of both the spirit and of graphic storytelling."
— Los Angeles Times

"A powerful memoir of childhood and adolescence. . . . For those who appreciate unique stories of survival and second chances, Stitches is a beautiful memoir of a lost childhood, and a voice bitter sweetly found. It will leave you shaken and deeply satisfied."
— Globe and Mail

"David Small’s Stitches is fantastic. . . . Undoubtedly one of the best books of 2009."
— January magazine

"Extraordinary. . . . Small's seemingly simple black-and-white wash captures people, emotions, relationships, and plot subtleties with grace, precision, and a flawless sense of graphic narration. . . . Highly recommended."
— Library Journal (starred review)

"One word. Phenomenal. . . .This book changed my opinion of the [graphic novel] genre forever. . . . If you haven't read a graphic novel before, let this be your first. . . . Highly Recommended."
— Jeff Rivera, GalleyCat

"Like other 'important' graphic works it seems destined to sit beside — think no less than Maus — this is a frequently disturbing, pitch-black funny, ultimately cathartic story whose full impact can only be delivered in the comics medium. . . .If there's any fight left in the argument that comics aren't legitimate literature, this is just the thing to enlighten the naysayers."
— Booklist (starred review) 

"Small's art — by turns expressively abstract and clinically realistic — ensures that Stitches lands on the reader with satisfying emotional weight. The book contains several long, wordless passages in which Small's visual storytelling comes to the fore — facial expressions, body language and page layouts tell us more than long stretches of exposition ever could. . . . Palpably, recognizably human."
— Glen Weldon, NPR.org

"David Small's Stitches is aptly named. With surgical precision, the author pierces into the past and, with great artistry, seals the wound inflicted on a small child by cruel and unloving parents. Stitches is as intensely dramatic as a woodcut novel of the silent movie era and as fluid as a contemporary Japanese manga. It breaks new ground for graphic novels."
— Françoise Mouly, Art Editor, The New Yorker

"My first reading of Stitches left me speechless. And in awe. David Small presents us with a profound and moving gift of graphic literature that has the look of a movie and reads like a poem. Spare in words, painful in pictures, Small, in a style of dry menace, draws us a boy's life that you wouldn't want to live but you can't put down. From its first line, we know that we are in the hands of a master."
— Jules Feiffer, Pulitzer Prize-winning comics artist

"[A] wholly original work and one of the most intense graphic novels of this or any other year."
— ICcv2.com (4 stars)

"It is truly a beautiful and moving graphic memoir. . . . David's story deserves to be told, and Stitches is an astonishing rendition of his experience."
— Dallas Books Examiner

"Stitches is one of the most compelling books I've read in a long time. David Small, with his ground-breaking work, has elevated the art of the graphic novel and brought it to new creative heights."
— Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man

"David Small evokes the mad scientific world of the 1950s beautifully, a time when everyone believed that science could fix everything. . . . Capturing body language and facial expressions subtly, Stitches becomes in Small's skillful hands a powerful story, an emotionally charged autobiography."
— Robert Crumb

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"If you have ever questioned whether graphic novels can be as poignant and powerful as traditional novels or memoirs, Stitches proves that they can. In fact, I don't think David Small's memoir could be told as powerfully in any other format. . . . A great graphic novel and memoir."
— Wilson Knut
 
"We talk sometimes about getting inside a character's head, or reaching the heart of a story. Instead, Small's memoir goes straight to the gut, so that reading Stitches actually feels different from reading other books. With its economy of words, it forces the reader to process the images into language, leaving you momentarily speechless."
— Sarah Miller, sarahmillerbooks.com  
 
"[A] gut wrenching graphic memoir. . . . In spare prose and stark panels, employing images that are startling, dream-like and reminiscent of classic cinema, Small takes you on an insightful and poignant journey through his own personal hell and eventual redemption."
— ReadingRants.org  
 
"David Small shines in illustrating the small details that make people real. This is a fairly dark book, but there were parts were I laughed out loud at Small's cunning characterizations. If you read other reviews, you'll see they call the style 'cinematic' and 'stunning' and it's both of those things. It's also whimsical, sad, and ultimately uplifting. It has possibly the best final line of any book I've read. Definitely one I'll be buying in hardcover and my favorite graphic novel for the past several years. Stunningly done and a good pick for adults who haven't stuck their toe in the graphic novel pool. The water's fine."
— Maggie Stiefvater
 
"An absorbing graphic memoir from a contemporary and award-winning illustrator that depicts childhood dramas you wouldn't wish on anyone. A harrowing tale in its own right, this graphic version, from the victim's own hand, couldn't be portrayed more powerfully than the sequence of images we see here. Like Marjane Satrapi did years ago, David Small is sure to convert new readers to the world of graphic novels. It's that good."
— Angela Sherrill
 
"WOW! What a book!! . . . The story of David Small's childhood is gripping from the start. Told through sparse dialogue and simple yet haunting illustrations, Small has accomplished something unique: a harrowing, scary, powerful and beautifully told story. I cannot recommend this book more if I tried."
— BrooklynBoy

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For more information, please visit the author's website.

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David Small is the recipient of the Caldecott Medal, a Christopher Medal, and the E. B. White Award for his work in picture books, which include Imogene’s Antlers, The Gardener, and So, You Want to Be President? He and his wife, the writer Sarah Stewart, live in Mendon, Michigan.

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