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A Story of Grief and Love
by Sarah Leavitt
Book Reviewed by:A poignant graphic memoir about the power of art to transform and heal after the death of a loved one.
In April 2020, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt's partner of twenty-two years, Donimo, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. About a month after Donimo's death, Sarah began making comics again as a way to deal with her profound sense of grief and loss. The comics started as small sketches but quickly transformed into something totally unfamiliar to her. Abstract images, textures, poetic text, layers of watercolor, ink, and colored pencil—for Sarah, the journey through grief was impossible to convey without bold formal experimentation. She spent two years creating these comics.
The result is Something, Not Nothing, an extraordinary book that delicately articulates the vagaries of grief and the sweet remembrances of enduring love. Moving and impressionistic, Something, Not Nothing shows that alongside grief, there is room for peace, joy, and new beginnings.
Structured chronologically, Something, Not Nothing reads like a diary of Leavitt's first two years after her partner's death—although, mirroring the unpredictable and non-linear quality of grief, it is not always straightforward. The narrative is full of abstract musings, fragments of memories, and stuttering run-on sentences... Leavitt's experiments with art, text, and the combination of the two reflect her navigation of the grieving process; reading the book feels like being inside her mind as she adapts to her new reality...continued
Full Review
(693 words)
(Reviewed by Callum McLaughlin).
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, author of Noopiming
Something, Not Nothing is a stunning visual and poetic mapping of belonging, attachment, love, and tremendous loss. Through tiny portraits and vignettes, Leavitt charts a course through the emotional chaos of grief, anchored in an atmosphere of love and a practice of presence. The result is not your typical book about grief, but an artistic treatise challenging readers to live and love more courageously, especially in the most difficult of times. Maia Kobabe, author of Gender Queer: A Memoir
A gorgeous, heart-wrenching, deeply human meditation on love and loss. There were pages that lifted my spirits and pages that pierced me to my core. Sobbed through the majority of reading it, but couldn't put it down. Leavitt's mapmaking of the landscape of grief is a gift to us all. Nicole J Georges, author of Calling Dr. Laura
Sarah Leavitt has created a beautiful monument in this book: a primal portrait of grief and a powerful testament to a hard and lasting love. I believe that we as artists are trying to share our emotional realities with our readers and invite them into the feeling even when they've not had this particular experience. Leavitt succeeds in this over and over again through the intimacy she lets the reader in on and the powerful juxtaposition of her art and words. This book is a beautiful, deep, and powerful use of the comics form.In her graphic memoir Something, Not Nothing, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt chronicles her partner's declining health, her eventual death, and the immense grief that followed. The medium of graphic memoir—in which the author documents their experiences using a combination of text and artwork—can be particularly powerful when used to explore health struggles, be they physical or mental. Accessible and immersive, the form inherently explores the possibility of art as a means to process and represent pain.
Below are a few other examples of graphic memoirs with a focus on health.
The Hospital Suite by John Porcellino
After surgery to remove a tumor from his small intestine, Porcellino suffered a number of health complications, ...
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by Sam Sax
Published 2024
In between the space of time when Ezra lights themself on fire and when Ezra dies the world of this book flashes before their eyes. Everyone Ezra's ever loved, every place they've felt queer and at home, or queer and out of place, reveals itself in an instant.
by Kindra Neely
Published 2022
This searing graphic memoir portrays the impact of gun violence through a fresh lens with urgency, humanity, and a very personal hope.
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