David Small's graphic memoir, Stitches, was published in September, 2009. The novel is set in Detroit, where Small spent his childhood. As a young boy he was plagued with reoccurring respiratory problems. His father (a radiologist) did everything he could to help his son, through x-rays and radiation therapy he exposed Small to large doses of radiation. While still at a young age, a growth began to form on Small's neck. Years after the diagnosis, Small awoke from this supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute—one of his vocal cords had been removed along with the growth. He was fourteen, and had not been told that the radiation had given him cancer and was expected to die. From there things began to stack up as his parents' hidden distress and anger started to seep through in fits of sadness and rage directed towards him. When the world became too much for the extremely talented Small to handle he would escape into his own world of sketches and drawings. Stitches tells the story of Small's journey from sickly child to cancer patient, to the troubled teen who made a risky decision to run away from home at sixteen—with nothing more than the dream of becoming an artist.
Stitches has been reviewed by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and is a #1 New York Times Best Seller. It was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by Publishers Weekly and Amazon.com. It was also a finalist for the 2009 National Book Award for Young People's Literature .
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