Description

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A debut graphic novel that poignantly blends memoir, magic realism, and graphic medicine.

Ephemera is a poetic and dreamlike take on a graphic memoir set in a garden, a forest, and a greenhouse. The story drifts among a grown woman, her early memories as a child, and the gossamer existence of her mother. A lyrical entry in the field of graphic medicine, Ephemera is a story about a daughter trying to relate to a parent who struggles with mental illness. Gorgeously illustrated in a painted palette of warmy, earthy tones, it is a quiet book of isolation, plants, confusion, acceptance, and the fog of childhood. Loewinsohn’s debut book is an aching, meditative twist on autobiography, infusing the genre with an ethereal fusion of memory and imagination.

About the Author

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Briana Loewinsohn is an American cartoonist. These days she teaches high school art and draws comic books. She lives in Oakland, CA with her husband, daughter, and son. If she doesn’t text you back, she is probably gardening.

Praise For…

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This imaginative autobiography uses the healing and growth of plants to explore childhood pains and memories.
— The New York Times

Loewinsohn debuts with an astounding graphic memoir of her coming of age amid her mother’s mental illness. ... This powerful yet meditative work heralds the arrival of a promising creator.
— Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Loewinsohn's memoir [is] a sophisticated and picturesque exploration of the weights that adults carry with them from their childhoods, imprints and encumbrances that accompany them wherever they go. It's a reminder, too, of how people can reshape these burdens, using art and inventiveness to realign the past in relation to the present.
— NPR

Loewinsohn’s debut [features] rich, textured, and emotional artwork. [She] resists the category of graphic memoir by switching between timelines and using the art to mirror the looping nature of memory.
— Booklist

The art conveys the wistfulness and longing of a child dealing with a profound and baffling loss, and a woman who is still seeking a way to connect with the mother she lost too early.
— Graphic Medicine

A gorgeously drawn meditation on those who matter most to us. Sublime.
— Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese)

Ephemera is a beautifully rendered melancholy memoir. A deep mix of fondness and sadness. A lovely work!

— Peter Bagge

The ethereal art and poetic writing of Briana Loewinsohn's Ephemera feels like a dream that is both magical and heartbreaking.

— Thien Pham (Level Up)