Wounds Heal, Scars Don't

Due to Stitches being a graphic novel, it's quite hard to nail what anything is in terms of diction. I mean, most of it is dialogue. Maybe that leads it into being more towards the informal or even a familiar register. Either way, the author probably did so for the same reasons Brent Runyon did for the Burn Journals: maybe just to write it all down as to unburden himself, or simply to tell a story for others to sympathize with him.

Anyways, just as I was starting to wonder why the memoir is called what it is, a growth appears on the side of David's (the narrator's) neck, which horrifies him, as his older brother had once shown him pictures of unnatural growths and women's breasts. The doctor says it's nothing to worry about: a simple cyst.

Three years after the diagnosis, when David is fourteen, doctors perform two surgeries on David's neck, resulting in the loss of half of his vocal chord, after which, according to David, the only sound that he can make is "ack".

Here, in a way, David lost his language. The mom would still talk by "taking care of the dishes,"  the brother would talk through the slamming of his drum set, the dad would talk through the screeching sound of tires as he drove his car out... But David's silence, his language or lack thereof, was "no longer a matter of choice."

Then, the style and story gets very, very dynamic, very quickly.

As he realizes that the surgeries were to remove a cancerous tumor (which his parents were hiding from him), his mind drives into instability, leaving a huge scar both on his neck and his mind. He feels as if he doesn't exist, screams silently, sleeps under the table, and finds himself trapped in an imagination that resembles the destroyed rubble and debris of a temple. 

Disbelief. Despair.

The stitches themselves didn't help. David went to jail. David ran away three times. David tried to get psychiatric help. To no avail. The damage had been done.

So little words. So much impact.

All of this is so well aesthetically and emotionally orchestrated that I had no choice but to be forced onto the rollercoaster of sentiments along with David. I don't know how else to say this, but the book is captivating. All this in black and white.

This blog post was meant to be a lot more happy and optimistic.

Alas, it is not.

That's how impacting the book was.

Here's something to cheer you and me up.