Imagine Wanting Only This

Imagine Wanting Only This is a haunting graphic memoir about leaving, and those left behind. After the sudden death of a beloved uncle, Kristen becomes obsessed with abandoned places – derelict Midwestern mining towns, an Icelandic village preserved in volcanic ash, Cambodian temples reclaimed by jungle. At the same time, she examines what it means to be an artist, to be hungry for the next experience, to be always in transit. Beautifully illustrated in black and white, Imagine Wanting Only This confirms Kristen Radtke as an important new voice in the comics world.

About the Author :
Kristen Radtke is the art director and New York editor of The Believer magazine and the film and video editor of TriQuarterly magazine. She lives in New York. Imagine Wanting Only This is her first book.

Review :
Radtke is, first and foremost, a superhuman of illustration, a grandmaster like Adrian Tomine or Chris Ware. The most beautiful graphic novel you’ll read all year, Kristen Radtke’s memoir is an absolutely stunning look at what it is to recover from grief, and is so haunting you’ll be thinking about it for days after reading it... At once narrative and factual, historical and personal, Radtke's stunning illustrations and piercing text never shy away from the big questions: Why are we here, and what will we leave behind? Brilliant… The book is a family drama, youthful romance, obsessive adventure, and karmic inquiry wrapped in a coming-of-age tale. [Radtke's] thumbnail history of left-behind people and places, and a wondrous panel-by-panel archive of the interplay between her rapacious intellect and her expansive imagination. [Radtke's] writing is never less than lovely, and her black-and-white drawings are masterfully eloquent: at once vivid and faded. Think Shelley’s "Ozymandias", with light top notes of Alison Bechdel and Adrian Tomine. [Radtke is] a master of both prose narrative and visual art... In a way, what she has done in this impressive book is to revive the dead and recover the lost while illuminating a world in flux, in which change is the only constant. Powerfully illustrated and incisively written – a subtle dazzler of a debut. Remarkable...a breathtaking mix of prose and illustration. One of the most haunting graphic memoirs I’ve ever read... As we turn the pages on [Radtke’s] journey, we are ravaged and ravished. There is a proud tradition of graphic memoirists – of those dually equipped to wield word and image – to tell the true and deeply considered story of a life. Alison Bechdel, Roz Chast, Riad Sattouf, David Small, Marjane Satrapi, Art Spiegelman and others have done it searingly well. Add now to that list Radtke, who proves herself an equal among equals with this debut book. With elegant writing and arresting drawings, Kristen Radtke’s Imagine Wanting Only This...grapple[s] with the limits of how much understanding our past can help us comprehend our present... She is a master of silhouette and shadow, of negative space, evoking a sense of potent isolation. A stunning, honest meditation on loss... Radtke’s book is enchanting. This memoir’s realisation of urgency expresses itself in human beings’ silence, which might frustrate readers of prose memoir. But here it is an opportunity for Radtke’s readers to focus, stare, wonder – to remain within urgency itself... This is a riveting use of memoir.