When he was eleven, he developed a lump in his neck that was diagnosed as a cebaceous cyst. X-rays were the new big thing, and his father as a radiologist used them to “cure” David of his sinus infections.

David was small, sensitive, and prone to infections.

His mother is a 1950s housewife, his father a radiologist, and his older brother is the usual bullying brat of a big brother. Small divides his memoir about his “Soviet Bloc” of a childhood into parts relating to his age when the events happen: “I Was Six,” “I Was Eleven,” “I Was Fourteen,” and “I Was Fifteen.” Through black and white drawings, shaded in grays, with very few words, Small tells the story of a family where silence reigns, where love is never shown, and where explanations are never given. He says, “I am an artist, and this is a book about being voiceless…When you have no voice, you don’t exist.” And Small holds himself to a very high standard.David Small, known for his prize-winning children’s books and book illustrations, has created a masterpiece of a memoir in a graphic novel format. A change in one panel can mean changes in dozens that follow it. Small describes revising a graphic novel in terms of falling dominoes. 'The last revision had to do with cutting out three major characters, several major incidents, and also the little psychopath because he was beginning to take over my story,' he said. Small drew and redrew the novel 12 times as he refined the story. 'When I found a group of my peers, I would have done anything, anything, betrayed anyone to be part of that group, to be looked up to,' he said.Īlthough, he didn't do anything quite as bad as happens in the book, he says. Again this is based on Small's own experience. There, Russell finds himself isolated and increasingly desperate. His dad then decides to move to California.

It became a story of Russell, a teenager in Ohio whose mother takes off with his father's best friend. 'Having been bullied in school was part of it,' he said. So Small dug deep and he reshaped the story. 'And if you are going to go that route then you are probably going to have to explore your own adolescence at 13 and you are probably going to have to deal with the thing that scared you the most at that time,' Small said Then a writer friend told him the best books have some of the author in them. Published by permission of Liveright Publishing

David small graphic novel