The Atlantic
The Books Briefing: Why the Graphic-Novel Format Can Be Perfect for Memoirists
Illustrated memoirs offer an expansiveness that prose ones sometimes cannot: Your weekly guide to the best in books
Adam Maida / The Atlantic / M. Sharkey / Getty
If “the medium is the message,” as the communication theorist Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1964, what are authors saying when they choose to tell their stories via graphic memoirs? These books weave together text, illustration, photography, and archival items to enrich first-person narratives and explorations of the self. The interplay of the different components allows for an expansiveness that straight prose sometimes cannot achieve, and that makes these nonfiction works as captivating as the latest fiction page-turner.