Visualizing food
Green’s graphic novel, written in 2018 and closely inspired by her own experiences with anorexia nervosa and sexual abuse, returns throughout to these nebulous curved lines. They cluster in her throat when she eats a chocolate truffle, travel through her esophagus, and eventually transfer to the air, where, becoming bigger and bigger, they push her feet off the ground and airborne.
In subsequent panels, knotted lines float over Katie’s head in a halo-shaped tangle, increasing and decreasing in size as her own body does. They are smallest when Katie herself is depicted as only a wisp of a wavy line.
Green uses the same dark forms to suggest engorgement. Emanating from Katie’s stomach, they dominate the page and dissolve her body into anatomical fragments.