'Radtke is, first and foremost, a superhuman of illustration, a grandmaster like Adrian Tomine or Chris Ware.' New York Times Book Review
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.
Radtke is, first and foremost, a superhuman of illustration, a
grandmaster like Adrian Tomine or Chris Ware.
*New York Times Book Review*
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?
*Newsweek*
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.
*Elle*
[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.
*Guardian **Graphic Novel of the Month***
[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.
*Kirkus*
Remarkable...a breathtaking mix of prose and illustration.
*Atlantic*
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.
*Chicago Tribune*
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.
*Boston Globe*
A stunning, honest meditation on loss... Radtke’s book is
enchanting.
*Huffington Post*
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.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
In her exquisitely soul-, mind-, and heart-shattering debut graphic
memoir, Kristen Radtke explores life's big questions surrounding
grief, mortality, and the impermanence of the things – and the
people – we love most.
*Nylon*
Radtke's life – and the way she beautifully elevates her deeply
personal experiences into universal lessons – makes for brilliant,
compelling, unforgettable art.
*Bustle*
Kristen Radtke leads us through a bleak and beautifully crafted
story of heart and heartbreak – creation, connection, decay, and
loss. Imagine Wanting Only This is challenging and inspiring.
*Ellen Forney, New York Times bestselling author of MARBLES*
Writer, illustrator, and editor Radtke’s graphic memoir does
something difficult within just a few minimally designed, emotional
pages: she transforms the over-studied experience of being a
talented artist stuck in that yearning gulf between college’s
purpose and life’s demands into something unique and thuddingly
real.
*Publishers Weekly*
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