About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
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Description
Longlisted for Canada Reads; Finalist, City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize
In this intimate and moving graphic memoir, Teresa Wong writes and illustrates the story of her struggle with postpartum depression in the form of a letter to her daughter Scarlet. Equal parts heartbreaking and funny, Dear Scarlet perfectly captures the quiet desperation of those suffering from PPD and the profound feelings of inadequacy and loss. As Teresa grapples with her fears and anxieties and grasps at potential remedies, coping mechanisms, and her mother's Chinese elixirs, we come to understand one woman's battle against the cruel dynamics of postpartum depression.
Dear Scarlet is a poignant and deeply personal journey through the complexities of new motherhood, offering hope to those affected by PPD, as well as reassurance that they are not alone.
About the Author
Teresa Wong is a writer and cartoonist based in Calgary, Alberta. Her comics and illustrated essays have appeared in The Believer, The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and The Walrus. Her first graphic memoir, Dear Scarlet: The Story of My Postpartum Depression, was a finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize and was longlisted for CBC Canada Reads. In 2021-22, she served as the Canadian Writer-in-Residence at the University of Calgary, and she currently teaches comics at Gotham Writers Workshop.
Awards
- Short-listed, City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Book Prize
Editorial Reviews
I love this book! It's full of pain, despair, beauty and joy -- communicated masterfully in simple, elegant comics. Teresa Wong moves easily from pages full of frank details about physical and emotional suffering to heartbreakingly silent depictions of the isolation and blankness of depression. Through it all, she maintains a self-awareness and sense of humour that keep us reading. Dear Scarlet offers validation and comfort, not to mention some laughs of recognition, for anyone who has suffered pain and kept 'fumbling through the sadness.' -Sarah Leavitt, author of Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer's, My Mother and Me
We see quiet but similarly daunting images: simple bird's-eye views of her baby surrounded by white space, tiny arms stretching out of her swaddle. The rendering's variance in tone feels true to life. It's sometimes quiet, sometimes deafening, and always complex. Whatever the volume, there are always possibilities for suffocation but also for beauty and hope. -Paris Review
Full to bursting with sadness, insight and hope. -Tom Hart, author of Rosalie Lightning
Set up as a letter to her daughter, Wong depicts the emotional nuances of her first year with a newborn - love, tenderness, humor, self-blame, and all-consuming depression. While more depictions of PPD are being published, theyâre still rare, and this is a lovely, poignant example. Wong also connects her experiences to her Chinese heritage. It's a tearjerker but a must-read for potential parents. -Buzzfeed News
This raw but reassuring memoir filled with helpful suggestions to mothers struggling with similar situations and feelings is sure to resonate with many new parents. -Publishers Weekly
Teresa Wong's spare, lovely exploration of postpartum depression is compassionate and direct in all the right ways and, most importantly, locates the thread of joy that runs through a life -- even if, in our most despairing hours or days or weeks, it seems as though it's been lost to us forever. -Emily Flake, author of Mama Tried
This book is so important -- it's like a friend reaching through the darkness and telling your own story back to you. It's universal and heartbreaking and so, so reassuring. Moms are so strong. -Lucy Knisley, author of Kid Gloves
Wong's images and minimal text are pleasing to the eye, making it hard for the reader to put the book down. She has a knack for taking a hard subject like mental illness, one that is often silenced, and using empathy and humour to address it directly. -The Ormsby Review
Dear Scarlet feels brave: Wong articulates sentiments that fly in the face of societal conventions about motherhood in a book explicitly created for her daughter to read ... The urgency of these stories is matched by the immediacy of their form. -New York Times
We need more vulnerable, tender, self-effacing, real, funny and insightful books like this - and more brave and bold authors like Wong. -Herizons
From this easy-reading and welcoming story of Wong's very tough time, readers will understand that suffering from PPD is not unique, and there's lots of help -- and hope -- available. -Booklist
With heartbreaking candor and utterly disarming humor, Wong removes the rose-colored glasses through which our culture so often views new motherhood. -Bustle
In a society where women's stories of childbirth and early motherhood are expected to be either fairy tales or else not told at all, Dear Scarlet is an act of bravery. I am so grateful that Teresa Wong has chosen to share this sensitive, charming and honest work with us. -Sarah Glidden, author of Rolling Blackouts
