'Once an animator at Disney Studios, Nicolas Keramidas now makes a living as a cartoonist in Grenoble. He’s married to a wonderful woman, Chloé, has two energetic sons, and plays soccer every Sunday with his pals. He was also born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a rare combination of four heart defects that in 1973 made him one of the youngest children ever to undergo open-heart surgery. Forty-three years later, when his congenital condition stops him short during a soccer game, he’ll have to face surgery again, a saga he details in this moving, humorous, and above all, very human memoir.'
Illness is one of the worst things you might have to face in your life. I'm not talking about getting sick with the flu or something like that, but getting ill with something that doesn't just go away with simple rest and medication; something that can change your life. I live with an incurable condition (currently, here's hoping the future changes that) and know what it's like to suddenly feel like your body has turned against you, and to live your life in a suddenly different state. As such, I was immediately drawn to Nick Kéramidas' graphic novel, 'Open-Hearted', which chronicles his experiences with open-heart surgery.
The book begins with Nick telling the audience about how he was born with Tetralogy of Fallot, a rare heart condition that meant that he had to undergo surgery as a baby, one of the youngest people to ever do so. Despite this, he had a fairly happy childhood growing up, and even made up stories about how he got his scars to impress his friends. It was something that never really bothered him because it was from a time where he didn't remember things, it was a vague concept of something that happened to him a long time ago, so it never really changed who he was.
Cut to forty three years later, Nick has a good career as a comic book artist and animator, having worked on Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame. He's got loving wife, and two sons he adores. His life is good. But one day whilst playing football with his friends he gets a strange feeling in his chest. His heart doesn't feel right. Ignoring it and trying to carry on as usual, it gets worse, until he finally goes to see his doctor. When they discover that Nick has a serious condition it sets him on the road to open-heart surgery, months of recovery, and a change in his life that would go on for years as he goes in and out of hospital.
One of the things that makes Open-Hearted easy to read is how lighthearted Nick makes everything feel. It never feels like a detached narrator, leading us through this distressing and traumatic ordeal, or someone who's come out the other side yet still feels a ton of sadness and despair at recounting his tale. Instead, Nick manages to make the story feel strangely fun at times, giving events a certain degree of humour and whimsy I'm sure were needed at the time in order to get through it.
There are a lot of memoirs out in the world, and many of them cover uncomfortable experiences. Some of those books seem to always be in the shadow of their content, unable to escape the negative emotions that come with living through an ordeal such as this, but that never feels this way here. I think part of that is down to the art too. It's easy to see why Nick worked for Disney just from flicking through the book. It doesn't have a hyper real feel to it, instead embracing a very animated and child-friendly style. His characters feel like they've stepped out of a Saturday morning cartoon, they make you feel comfortable and at ease, yet are able to express the whole gamut of emotions that Nick would have been through.
I'm not sure I'd say this was a 'fun' book to read, as the subject matter isn't exactly light reading material, but it was an enjoyable experience. It showed me some of the things that people who're going through medical procedures face, how it can greatly change their lives, which was something I didn't know everything about before. But most of all, the book had a lot of hope inside it. It showed that even when things seem their darkest, when we're going through the worst, that they can get better and that you should never give up hoping for something wonderful to come.
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