Offers a graphic novel chronicle of the author's experiences with a severe vocal injury that forced her into silence for months, and the frustrations and challenges that came with the condition for a very social, vocal person. - (Baker & Taylor)
This graphic memoir is abouthow the author copes with her loss of voice due to injury. - (WW Norton)
Part memoir, part medical cautionary tale, Dumb tells the story of how an urban twentysomething copes with the everyday challenges that come with voicelessness. Webber adroitly uses the comics medium to convey the practical hurdles she faced as well as the fear and dread that accompanied her increasingly lonely journey to regain her life. Her raw cartooning style, occasionally devolving into chaotic scribbles, splotches of ink, and overlapping montages, perfectly captures her frustration and anxiety. But her ordeal ultimately becomes a hopeful story. Throughout, she learns to lean on the support of her close friends, finds self-expression in creating comics, and comes to understand and appreciate how deeply her voice and identity are intertwined. - (WW Norton)
Publishers Weekly Reviews
Silence is a curse and a gift in this meditative graphic memoir of illness and rebirth. Webber's sudden, severe vocal injury destroys life as she knows it, from dampening her vibrant social life to making her job as a barista almost impossible. Instructed by doctors to remain silent indefinitely, she tries out all manner of novel ways to communicate: wearing bright lipstick to facilitate lipreading, faux whispering, toting around a whiteboard. As the annoyance this presents deepens into impairment and isolation, she finds herself questioning who she is without her voice—and what sort of person she might become. Webber's spare art work is rendered entirely in black, white, and bright red. Simple visual cues provide elegant symbolism; cartoon stars lie heavy upon her as she visits the doctor, threaten to engulf her as she fails to heal, and spill over the book's front matter. There is no cheap catharsis here; the healthcare machine is alienating, and Webber's injury grows ever more enigmatic, as her loneliness remains. What the book becomes is an ode to doggedness and a testament to resilience through change. (Aug.)
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