Librarians Respond to the Bombs at Pearl Harbor; Meet Karina Shor, Author of Silence, Full Stop
Eighty two years ago today, Japanese bombers and fighter planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. Hours later the US entered World War Two. Okay, you knew that.
But did you know that thousands of librarians from around the country—shocked that the Nazis had banned and burned over a hundred million books under Hitler—busted a move and in twelve months collected more than eighteen million books for American GIs? And that those soldiers went nuts for the books. So much so, the US government stepped in and by war’s end printed 120 million more paperbacks. Now, consider that the average draftee had an 11th grade education, yet two million of them came home with such a love for reading and education that they enrolled in college through the GI Bill.
Just more evidence that it all starts with a librarian.
On tap is a very special conversation with graphic novelist Karina Shor about her gutsy, artsy, wisdom-filled memoir. Her experience with bulimia, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol struggles, and depression is rendered all the more powerfully through humor and irony. Check out Peter Dabbene’s starred review of Silence, Full Stop here.
Have a fabulous day!
Silence, Full Stop draws on many years of experiences, through memories, words, and images. Why and when did you make the decision to write a memoir? How long did it take you to finish the book once you’d begun?
I never really made the decision to write a memoir. I think it happened more organically than that. I was at the last Comics Arts Brooklyn convention in 2019 when I first met Liz Frances, my publisher. She asked me if I was interested in writing long form comics, and I immediately said yes. Without thinking, I knew that this would be the story. It just seemed like every time I was asked to create a comic for an assignment for class, one of those stories in the book rushed out of me. I made a short comic about having bulimia (as I was still experiencing that) when I was an undergraduate student. Then, to get accepted to my master’s program, I wrote about the anti-drugs campaign that you see in the book. And for my master’s thesis, I started writing about the sexual abuse I experienced. So, in a way, it wasn’t a conscious choice, these stories just wished to be released from my memory.
It’s hard to say how much time it took to create this book. I write things all the time without knowing when I will use them or for what. Some sentences that found their way into this book I wrote while I was walking back-and-forth to my studio in Greenpoint, long before I started to specifically work on the book. And some were taken directly from my diaries from the time I was 16, 17, 18 and so on. But from the minute the contract with Street Noise was signed, it took me three years to complete it.
The book includes transcripts of some of your high school diary entries. Was looking back at them and using them in the book simply an effective way to communicate your past experiences, or did the process of revisiting diaries and old photos lead the book in other directions than you had originally conceived?
In a way my writing style is a conversation between me and myself throughout time. I didn’t add the diary entries in, I wrote alongside them. Because I write every single day in a diary, and in a sketchbook, I have an open channel of ideas that flow randomly. I simply needed to collect and edit them when I sat down to actually write the script for the book.
Despite weighty topics—including drug, alcohol, and sexual abuse—there is humor in the book, like the kindergarten-aged Karina’s early mutual anatomical explorations with a boy (“I wasn’t ready for a commitment”), and some moments that mix humor and horror, even as they advance the narrative (your family’s homemade gas masks, and the child’s-view comparison between the Disney version of The Little Mermaid and the Russian version of the story). Did you feel a conscious need to give the reader a laugh in the midst of so many dark and painful subjects, or did those humorous aspects just emerge naturally from the story?
If we would meet in person, you wouldn’t need to ask me that question. And that is because this book is very much like me—my coping mechanism is laughter and sometimes dark humor, so this is how it came out in the book. In general, I must admit that nothing is very planned, I trust my process and go with what I feel is right when I feel it. Of course, my editor helped me through the process, but I wrote this book for myself first and foremost.
One of the things that struck me about your book was the beautiful symmetry between its beginning and its end, both revolving around water, which brings a myriad of potential metaphorical meanings. How early in the process of writing the book did you know you wanted to bookend the story with these scenes? What do they mean to you?
I knew the beginning and the end right away, before I knew exactly what would be in the middle. I had an idea about life itself and its natural cyclical way; we are born bald, helpless, and shriveled, and this is how we die (if we are lucky enough to die of old age). But the middle is a slow unfolding mystery. Another inspiration of mine is the Old Testament. It begins with “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Genesis 1:1) This sentence about the beginning of times, holds our worst fears of the end—to cease to exist, to go into a dark void. I think that coming full circle is something we search for as humans.
The water metaphor is something that is very present in my life. When I am in doubt or held by fear of the future, I look to the sea. The waves going back and forth remind me that nothing lasts forever, that everything that goes away will eventually come back in some shape or form. Storms will calm down, and the calmest sea will eventually storm.
Many of the friends and acquaintances portrayed in the book might be described as “bad influences” in one way or another, often enabling your own destructive behavior. Do you blame anyone for the choices you made during those years, or do you think you would have traveled similar paths regardless? Are you still in touch with anyone, other than family members, who shows up as a character in the book?
I don’t think there are bad influences. I believe you need to be in a certain place in your own life to be influenced in a bad way. I don’t blame anyone for anything I chose to do. Having said that, I don’t really keep in touch with most of the characters in the book except my family, as you mentioned. I think we were all damaged kids because of our life circumstances, and hopefully we all developed into much more put together adults.
Your father is an artist, and, as shown in the book, you aspired to be like him from an early age. How much of your own drawing and art style is influenced by his?
My father is a fine artist, our styles don’t look the same. But I was and still am very influenced by his work ethic, and the weird belief that I have to keep going no matter what, because this is my calling in life. Everything in my life and in his revolves around the idea that we must create. Our art comes first before any life necessities. Of course, this is not always the most healthy outlook, but it is how it is.
In an author’s note before the story begins, you wrote, “This piece of life shaped me, and now I’m ready to let it go.” How did the events depicted in the book hold you back or otherwise affect you in adulthood, and how did you arrive at a point of being ready and able to move on? What other projects does the future hold for you?
I wrote this note while working on the book. I was suffering from retraumatizing myself with things I thought I already handled. It was a very long process of drawing my worst memories. I would cry many nights after I would be done for the day. And truly wished it would just end. But the process felt beyond my control and that I had to finish it no matter how it felt. As I mentioned before, this book had been swirling in my head for years. I was obsessed with writing and drawing those events.
I must say that I feel a huge relief having finished it. It’s like I no longer need to shout my truth anymore. It’s there, beautifully bound in a book. I can literally close it, put it on a shelf and move on.
As for the future, I’ve already started writing my next graphic novel. Just as I did with this book, I’m now gathering and editing things I wrote before randomly in sketchbooks, and in my diaries. This next book will be all about a subject that’s very present in my life: romantic relationships. I have a plan for the book after that as well, and the one after that, but those are still a secret.
Peter Dabbene
