Something, Not Nothing: A Story of Grief and Love - Sarah Leavitt - ★★.½

AUTHOR: Sarah Leavitt

GENRE: Graphic Memoir

PUBLICATION DATE: September 24, 2024

RATING: 2.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A graphic novel memoir dealing with the author’s feelings after the death of her long-time partner. Depicts the helplessness and frustration of death effectively. Emotional throughout. Philosophical at times. Not my cup of tea but it might work better for the right reader.

In April 2020, the author’s partner of 22 years, Donima, chose to have a medically-assisted death after suffering for many years from various severe ailments, including worsening chronic pain. She was only fifty-four, but most of her life had gone in dealing with her various conditions and injuries. This collection of comics was sketched by the author during her first two years without her partner. As she says, they show her “exploration of the new uncharted territory of personal grief.”

As you might guess from the above, the book is full of pain. Some might assume that the book charts the course through the five stages of grief, but as many of us who have actually gone through personal loss know, the five stages are mostly found only in textbooks. In real life, grief and its overcoming takes a much more circuitous journey, and not necessarily in the forward direction. This book confirms the same.

The tone is obviously a mix of intense negative feelings: dark thoughts, anger, frustration, confusion, helplessness… The murky pathways of grief are visible through the plethora of whats and what-ifs circulating in the author’s mind. I thought a part of the book would also include some fond memories of their relationship, but such content is limited. Most of the book is quite impressionistic, focussing on the general than on the specific.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from this book, but I doubt I’ll pick up such a topic again. The content is so painful that it feels like you are intruding on someone’s private thoughts, like you are watching someone go through an emotionally-shattering crisis and you can’t do anything but stand by. It is very awkward to see such fierce personal pain on page. Though I couldn’t personally relate to many of the thoughts, I had to take regular breaks because of how intrusive it all felt. Plus, the tone is too philosophical, with some thoughts going highly abstract and even poetic – totally not for me, even though some of this might be justified by the content.

The illustrations are mostly in B&W, thus fitting well with the grieving tone. A few pages use some light rainbow hues, but not necessarily to indicate positive feelings. The graphics are fairly unstructured, depicting the cacophony in the author’s mind well. Some pages are neater with clearer illustrations while some just feel like scribbles.

Basically, this was too esoteric for my taste. But the book has a highly positive rating on GR, so it definitely has many fans; don’t allow my opinion to dissuade you.

Recommended to those who find the content and style appealing.

This was a library read.