Swallow Me Whole - Hardcover

Powell, Nate

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1603090339 ISBN 13: 9781603090339

Publisher: Top Shelf Productions, 2008

Synopsis

Swallow Me Whole is an award-winning love story carried by rolling fog, terminal illness, hallucination, apophenia, insect armies, and unshakeable faith.

In his most ambitious book to date, Powell quietly explores the dark corners of adolescence -- not the cliched melodramatic outbursts of rebellion, but the countless tiny moments of madness, the vague relief of medication, and the mixed blessing of family ties. As the story unfolds, two stepsiblings hold together amidst schizophrenia, obsessive compulsive disorder, family breakdown, animal telepathy, misguided love, and the tiniest hope that everything will someday make sense.

Deliberately paced, delicately drawn, and drenched in shadows, Swallow Me Whole is a landmark achievement for Nate Powell and a suburban ghost story that will haunt readers long after its final pages.

2009 Eisner Award Winner for Best Graphic Album (New), Eisner Award Nominee for Best Writer/Artist and Best Lettering, 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist for Young Adult Fiction, Ignatz Award Winner for Outstanding Artist and Outstanding Debut, and official selection of YALSA's Great Graphic Novels For Teens.

About this title

About the Author

Nate Powell was born in 1978 in Little Rock, Arkansas, and began self-publishing comics in 1992 at age 14. He graduated from School of Visual Arts in 2000.

Powell's work includes TheYear Of The Beasts (Roaring Brook Press, 2012), The Silence Of Our Friends (First Second, 2012), Any Empire (Top Shelf Productions, 2011), Swallow Me Whole (2009 Eisner Award winner for Best Graphic Novel, 2008 Ignatz Award winner for Outstanding Debut, and LA Times Book Prize nominee; Top Shelf, 2008), Sounds Of Your Name (Microcosm Publishing, 2006), Please Release (Top Shelf, 2006), It Disappears (Soft Skull Press, 2004), Tiny Giants (Soft Skull, 2003), and the self-published Walkie Talkie series.

He is also a fill-in writer/artist for the Vertigo Comics series Sweet Tooth and a contributor to the acclaimed fundraising anthology What You Wish For: A Book for Darfur (Bookwish/Putnam, 2011).

From 1999 to 2009 Powell worked full-time providing support for adults with developmental disabilities alongside his cartooning efforts. He managed DIY punk record label Harlan Records for 16 years, and performed in the bands Universe, Soophie Nun Squad, Wait, Boomfancy, Gioteens, and Divorce Chord. He currently lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife Rachel Bormann.

From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up—Powell has created a complex tale of two adolescent step-siblings struggling through the usual angst and discovery that occur during the teenage years. However, for Ruth and Perry, mental illness makes this time even more difficult. Ruth, who is at the center of the story, suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder and patterns of schizophrenia. Infatuated with insects, she keeps collections of them in jars in her room and is constantly arranging and rearranging them. She hallucinates that masses of insects surround her and fears stepping on any living thing. For Ruth, the simplest tasks present huge challenges. Perry fights his own demon as he tries to rid himself of a small wizard who persistently appears and makes him draw. The author's treatment of mental illness is realistic and sensitive. Readers are brought into the experiences of the characters and empathize with them. The relationships Ruth and Perry have with each other and with other family members are honest and lovingly portrayed. Every word in this graphic novel is carefully chosen, dialogue is realistic, and background "noise" masterfully done. Powell's detailed pen-and-ink drawings are well executed with lettering and images so brilliantly intertwined that they are one and the same. While the complexity and subject matter of Swallow Me Whole will not appeal to everyone, those teens who pick it up will discover a poignant story.—Lara McAllister, Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia
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About this edition

• Publisher: Top Shelf Productions
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1603090339
• ISBN 13: 9781603090339
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 216