Nervosa
By Hayley Gold
PUBLICATION DATE: April 2023
6.875” X 10.25”
240 PAGES
TRADE PAPERBACK
ISBN: : 9781951491246
EBOOK ISBN:
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What People Are Saying
“An unflinching debut memoir filled with sharply recalled details and darkly funny observations. . . . bring[ing] the readers intimately into the emotions of living with an eating disorder.” —Publishers Weekly
“A perceptive, heart-wrenching, deeply personal, beautifully drawn story of the writer's difficult upbringing and efforts to overcome it.”—Will Shortz, crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times
“A remarkably candid account. The compelling voice and graphic storytelling is intuitive and inventive throughout.” —David Mazzucchelli, author of Asterios Polyp
“Pure gold. Brave and honest, poetic and balletic as it artfully dances into personal territory rarely touched in this medium.” —Peter Kuper, author of the Eisner Award-winning Ruins
“Unflinching and heart-rending and at the same time caustic and hilarious. The inventive visual metaphors and obvious pleasure in language show us that art and creativity can be a path to hard-won hope.” —Matt Madden, author of Ex Libris
Synopsis
Unflinchingly honest and darkly humorous, Nervosa is a graphic memoir about disordered eating, chronic illness, and a profound relationship with hope.
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder. It is not a phase, a fad, or a choice. It is a debilitating illness, manifested in a distorted relationship with food, but which actually has more to do with issues of control. It is often a puzzle for doctors, therapists, parents, and friends. And so those who suffer from it are belittled, or tragically misunderstood, not only by society but by the healthcare system meant to treat it.
Nervosa is a no-holds-barred, richly textured portrait of one young woman’s experience. In her vividly imagined retelling, Hayley Gold lays bare a callous medical system seemingly disinterested in the very patients it is supposed to treat. And traces how her own life was irrevocably damaged by both the system and her own disorder. With brutal honesty and witty sarcastic humor, Gold offers a remarkably candid exploration of the search for hope in the darkness.
About the Author
Hayley Gold is a comic book writer and artist. She studied cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Her first graphic novel, Letters to Margaret, published in 2021, is an exploration of culture wards through crossword puzzles and humor. Her work has been published in such anthologies as The Strumpet and World War 3 Illustrated. Hayley lives in New York City. She loves rabbits and the color cobalt blue.