Repairing trauma

Stitches : a memoir Stitches : a memoir

Stitches conjures Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland as well as other canonical childhood books to create a kind of inverted and nonsensical dreamscape, a dead-end.  Another touchstone image is a recurring memory of a fetal specimen in a jar,  encountered when David visits his father at work.  The specimen haunts his nightmares, a kind of teddy bear talisman in reverse. 

Stitches : a memoir

Ultimately, however, this is a story of triumph, and it is Small’s therapist --pictured as the Mad Hatter--that helps him gain his footing and to realize that his internal capacity for fantasy has not only allowed him to survive but makes him remarkable. 

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