It wasn't until she was 19 that Kimball learned her mother had attempted suicide 15 years prior, on Mother's Day, 1988. The revelation made Kimball wonder what had been going on then and what else she might not know about her family. This graphic memoir is the years-in-the-making result of that growing curiosity, an investigation Kimball approaches partially in reaction to the pervasive silence she recalls from her childhood. To better understand her mother, she looks to her grandmother, who was institutionalized multiple times for schizophrenia. But the only neat lines here are in Kimball's crisp grayscale illustrations. She tells her story in finely lettered, date- and location-stamped chapters that move back and forth in time, recalling her parents' divorce and custody battle, her dad's remarriage, her mom's bipolar diagnosis, moves, teenage loneliness, and, perhaps most poignantly, her relationship with her older brother. Kimball makes a stunning choice here, depicting herself and her family members only through reproduced photos or video stills: her dominating illustrations are of pristinely rendered interiors and domestic scenes, which are emphatically personal, even without people in them. An astonishing, loving, resonant chronicle of the hard and necessary work to make sense of the consciousness in ourselves and in our families.

Intensely candid debut memoir by illustrator and writer Kimball. "The Secret," the opening act of the book, pairs a charming illustrative style, marked by bold-line geometries and little handwritten pointers ("Essential sandwich ingredients," "Weird, secret storage room"), with a startling first sentence: "My mom was thirty-one when she decided to take her own life." That desperate act sets in motion the collapse of a seemingly ordinary family--though, of course, no family is truly ordinary. Of course, the suicide attempt, born of unsuccessfully managed bipolar disorder, clouded the lives of Kimball and her siblings, who were very young when it occurred. In adulthood, the author has tried to puzzle out events. "What I wanted," she writes, "is to clear away the muck: to point to a date on a calendar and say this led to that; to watch a video and deconstruct the moments that led to our family's collapse and its aftermath." That aftermath included institutionalization, disintegration, and recrimination. As Kimball writes, her sensitivity finely attuned, it took her time to realize that exploring her mother's psyche would force her still-living mother to "scratch at a wound that's probably been open since childhood." Just as sensitively, the author examines the effects of divorce on uncomprehending children and, more damagingly, the endless psychological battles surrounding custody. In the blended household in which she landed, her new family soon "began to splinter along biological lines," with blood siblings forming alliances in what would become a long cold war. Kimball is never shy to point the finger at herself, recognizing her anger that her mother's illness forced her to witness "the fact that she transformed from parent to stranger." The drama grows with the emerging recognition that her mother is not the only member of the family to suffer from mental illness. It's an extraordinarily honest look at life behind closed suburban doors--and with a sublimely redemptive conclusion. A welcome debut that will leave readers eager for a successor--and soon. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

With scalpel-sharp writing and tidy drawings, Kimball takes on a detective-like rigor as she unthreads her mother's bipolar disorder and suicide attempts, her parents' divorce, and the family history leading up to these defining events. It's as if Kimball wants to push against the slippery nature of memory by researching (and reproducing) court records, home videos, maps, and blueprints. "Mental illness defies logic. That was and probably still is the limitation of my pattern-seeking brain, a mind that wants a clear story," she notes. She's particularly keen on dissecting 1988, the year that her mother downed pills and tried to hang herself; as a four-year-old, Kimball witnessed the aftermath but understood little. She delves into a past that includes her schizophrenic grandmother and the childhood drowning of her aunt (her namesake). She also jumps forward into her own adulthood, when her older brother breaks with reality. For all the tumult in her family, there is also ample love and care--her mom's heartfelt letters; Kimball's own nonjudgmental take on her brother's QAnon-esque unhinged theories. Kimball suggests that her documentation is pathological in its own way, a "compulsion," and just one more layer of reality in the multiverse. It's a riveting reality to inhabit. Agent: Chad Luibl, Janklow and Nesbit. (Apr.)

Kimball (Nature's Wisdom: Coloring Our Beautiful World) investigates her family history and interrogates her own memories and emotional development in this compassionate, enthralling memoir. With her mother's first suicide attempt on Mother's Day 1988 as a focal point, Kimball moves back and forth in time to touch on her schizophrenic grandmother, the dissolution of her parents' marriage, and her relationship with her siblings as adults, culminating in an examination of her older brother's struggles with mental illness. Eschewing straightforward narration, Kimball employs illustrations of empty rooms, diagrams and blueprints, newspaper clippings, legal documents, and old photographs accompanied by word balloons and captions conveying snippets of conversation and commentary. In lesser hands these stylistic decisions may have resulted in an alienating sense of disorientation, but through unwavering honesty and sheer storytelling skill, Kimball creates an intimate portrait of the complicated, conflicting emotions that arise when one is confronted with a family member's mental illness while highlighting how trauma reverberates across generations. VERDICT An empathetic, uncommonly nuanced, and thoroughly brilliant family saga presented with real daring and true artistry.