Building Stories #[h]

Building Stories is Chris Ware's ambitious, unconventional graphic novel published by Pantheon in 2012, presented not as a traditional bound book but as a large box containing fourteen separate printed works in a variety of formats — newspapers, pamphlets, hardcovers, and fold-out boards. The pieces together tell the interwoven stories of the inhabitants of a Chicago three-flat, centering on a young woman navigating loneliness, regret, and the quiet textures of everyday life. Readers can experience the components in any order, making each encounter with the work a uniquely personal assembly.