Another I won’t easily forget. So fraught and vivid with imagery. Love the way this artist handles line and expressions, I read several parts all over again after finishing. But- the coldness. It’s beyond depressing: growing up in a tough household, not like the last, but tough with bitterness handed down from prior generations, with physical punishments, harsh words, unspoken resentments. Meager meals, unloving hands, and an x-ray technician father who turns the machine on his own son hoping to cure his ailments, only to (probably) give him cancer. The boy needed surgery on his throat when he was a teenager, leaving him unable to speak for a long time afterwards. He plunged himself into his artwork (some of the drawings depict this quite literally). I was absolutely appalled when his mother burned his books (I don’t care for Lolita myself, but I wonder what else was in his collection). I was alternately saddened and horrified all through this book, but couldn’t look away. You really ache after reading this one. It’s another showing how the author practically clawed his way out of a bad situation (leaving home at sixteen), found his place at art school, made a better life for himself. Hard to believe he went through all that, and was able to rise above it.
Borrowed from the public library.
