Look Again - by Elizabeth A Trembley (Paperback)

About the Book

Trauma can make truth hard to find. Have you ever experienced a terror, grief, or confusion so great that when you try to share it you can only find shattered images floating in darkness? You try over and over, but can't tell the story, to yourself or to anyone else. Look Again presents us with six variations of the same event, seen through the different lenses caused by other life revelations. It explores the fragmenting nature of trauma by tracing the convoluted evolution of the author's story, a process often experienced by trauma sufferers and their loved ones.

Book Synopsis

"an inventive and introspective memoir . . . crafted with equal parts mystery, honesty, and empathy." --Publishers Weekly

Once, years ago, while walking her dogs in the woods, Elizabeth found a dead body.

Trauma can make truth hard to find.

Have you ever experienced a terror, grief, or confusion so great that when you try to share it you can only find shattered images floating in darkness? You try over and over, but can't tell the story, to yourself or to anyone else. Look Again presents us with six variations of the same event, seen through the different lenses caused by other life revelations. It explores the fragmenting nature of trauma by tracing the convoluted evolution of the author's story, a process often experienced by trauma sufferers and their loved ones.

Review Quotes

"Profoundly smart, enlightening, and challenging, yet also personal, relatable, and funny. Absolutely brilliant!"--Tom Hart, author of the New York Times bestseller Rosalie Lightning

"Trauma shatters what we think of as truth. This deeply moving memoir perfectly captures how we rewrite the stories we tell ourselves in order to heal. I'm so grateful I read it." --Danny Gregory, author of How to Draw Without Talent

"Both unsettling and reassuring, navigating the thorny and ever-branching paths of memory, psychology, fear and trauma, while excavating the power of art and comics as sources of healing." --Bishakh Som, author of Apsara Engine and Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir

"This one-woman Rashomon is not only an engrossing page-turner, it's also a powerful argument for the power of comics to convey the fragmented nature of traumatic memory." --Matt Madden, author of Ex Libris

"A layered re-seeing of a traumatic event making the case that we change our own experience! In the gaps between our traumas and the stories we tell about them lie all the blanks, shifts, and elisions that we connect like dots into meaning." --Rhoda Janzen, author of Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

"A master class in reassembling narratives of trauma and of self, leading us through with patience, authenticity, and vulnerability, providing a guide for the rest of us."--MK Czerwiec, author of Menopause: A Comic Treatment

"A wise, necessary consideration of memory, PTSD, and how our realities form around trauma. A welcome addition to the Graphic Medicine canon!"--Nicole J. Georges, author of Fetch and Calling Dr. Laura

About the Author

Elizabeth A. Trembley is a Lambda Literary Award-winning mystery writer (pen name Josie Gordon) and memoirist who now tells her stories in comics. She has a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of Chicago. Elizabeth has taught college courses and public workshops on storytelling and comics, and currently, she works for the Sequential Artists Workshop. Elizabeth lives in West Michigan with three big dogs, two cats, and her Episcopal priest wife. And she walks in the woods every day.