A book that bends time and fragments narrative.In
Small Altars, Justin Gardiner delves into the world of comic books and superheroes as a means for coming to terms with the many struggles of his brother’s life, as well as his untimely death, offering a lyric and honest portrayal of the tolls of mental illness, the redemptive powers of art and familial love, and the complex workings of grief.
Justin Gardineris the author of
Beneath the Shadow: Legacy and Longing in the Antarctic, as well as the poetry collection
Naming the Lifeboat. He is a graduate of Warren Wilson’s MFA Program for Writers and assistant professor of creative writing at Auburn University, and he serves as the nonfiction editor of
The Southern Humanities Review.
“It’s been a long time since I've read a book as raw and honest, as staggeringly, shatteringly sad, and, too, as wise and life-affirming. WithSmall Altars, Justin Gardiner offers his late brother, himself, and all of us that great gift of attention, the hero’s favor of grace.”
“At its tender heart, Justin Gardiner’sSmall Altarsconsiders death, yes, but the life of fraternal bonds, illness, and separation—all placed on the psychic altars kept for loved ones. The figure of the superhero, the notion of the Endgame itself echoes throughout this haunted essay. Told in illustrative fragments and movements (like Debussy’s Claire de Lune),Small Altarselevates sound and reverberation from
block-written-as-panel to panel. Mixing chronology, research into mental illness and cancer, this essay’s blood circulatory system mirrors grief through its multivalent recurrences. In unassailable prose that only could be written by a poet, this tender reflection carves out space for two brothers that will endure well beyond these pages.”
“This thoughtful portrait of relóH
![Small Altars [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/9/4/1/2_7242542.jpg "Small Altars [Paperback]")