The Last Time We Spoke: A Story of Loss
PUBLICATION DATE: september 2025
6” X 9”
160 PAGES
Trade paperback
ISBN: 9781951491420
EBOOK ISBN:
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List Price
US $20.99
What People Are Saying
“The most moving, exquisitely rendered text and art I have ever experienced about the death of a loved one. I needed it so much. And felt changed.” —Naomi Shahib-Nye, author of Grace Notes: Poems about Families
“A beautiful, honest, and innovative ode to grief. A tribute to suffering, and a plea for compassion—for others, and for ourselves.” —Hugh D'Andrade, author of The Murder Next Door
“Review to come.”
“Review to come.”
Synopsis
An emotional and heartbreaking memoir of the author’s lifelong struggle with his mother’s death from cancer.
Grief never goes away.
When he was a teenager, Jesse Mechanic’s mother passed away after a long struggle with cancer. In this memoir, he looks back on that time, and on the ways that experience followed him throughout his life. Struggling with school while dealing with attentional problems and the overwhelming tsunami of grief, this book tells the story of Mechanic’s slow work to figure out a life for himself. It’s about obsessive-compulsive disorder, intrusive thoughts, and depression—straight-A’s turning to straight F’s, and smiles to blank stares. It's about what loss can teach us, and how trauma can be both debilitating and beautiful. It’s about standing in dark rooms for long enough for your eyes to adjust.
And graffiti. It’s about that too.
With powerful visuals and thoughtful, poignant text, this graphic memoir challenges readers to keep going in the face of the hardest times.
About the Author
Jesse Mechanic is an opinion columnist, essayist, and artist. He has published work in Mother Jones, In These Times, HuffPost, Truthout, and other publications. Jesse enjoys woodworking, the television show Cheers, and working diligently to dismantle the various oppressive systems that define our world. The Last Time We Spoke is his debut graphic novel.
