Stitches

David Small’s Stitches, a single-issue graphic memoir published in 2009 by McClelland & Stewart, recounts the author’s harrowing childhood in 1950s Detroit, centered on a devastating medical trauma and its aftermath. Small, both writer and artist, renders this deeply personal story in stark, expressive ink drawings that convey a world of silence, illness, and emotional isolation. A landmark work of autobiographical comics, it stands as a powerful testament to the medium’s capacity for unflinching, poetic truth-telling.