Book Review: Imagine Wanting Only This by Kristen Radtke

Reviewed by B.J. Hollars

Imagine Wanting Only This
Graphic Memoir by Kristen Radtke
Pantheon, April 2017
$29.95; 288 pp.
ISBN13: 978-1101870839

In her essay, “Time and Distance Overcome,” writer Eula Biss—speaking, ostensibly, about the invention of the telephone—notes, “Even now it is an impossible idea, that we are all connected, all of us.” Yet it is precisely this “impossible idea” that percolates just beneath the pages of Kristen Radtke’s debut graphic memoir.  Part memoir, part history, part mystery, part poem, the result is breathtaking, a tour de force that explores Radtke’s grapples with loneliness the world over, one destination after another failing to set right what’s gone wrong. And much has gone wrong, including Radtke’s loss of a beloved uncle, her inadvertent tampering with a dead photographer’s memorial, as well as a personal journey to find her place—and significance—in a mostly disinterested world.

Taken together, this is more than enough plot to fill this quiet narrative, one that is complicated by each new destination amid Radtke’s travels. In a diary entry from Italy, she confesses: “There are so many expectations of what this is all supposed to look like—being happy, having an adventure.” Pages later, while planning another trip, she turns this problem of expectations inward, writing: “It felt like I had to see everything, as if it was the only way my life would count or matter.” While Radtke’s work is haunted by a multitude of ghosts—her uncle, the dead photographer, as well as one ruinous landscape after another—the spirit she never shakes is tied to her own significance.  Visually, this is rendered most memorably in a two-page spread, where Radtke positions herself in the far right corner of the page as an Icelandic waterfall consumes the space around her.  No words are needed, the message is clear: our time here is short, and our significance always in question.

Such notions of impermanence and contribution are woven skillfully throughout.  In one instance Radtke writes that she’s “consumed by the question of how something that is can become, very suddenly, something that isn’t.”  Later, this sentiment is echoed through Radtke’s explorations of an abandoned mining town in Colorado, as well as the aftereffects of the Peshtigo Fire in Wisconsin—both examples of places that left their mark, though not terribly good ones.

Yet for her own part, Radtke’s contribution cannot be overstated. Imagine Wanting Only This is more than a visual interpretation of an existential crisis, or a quarter-life crisis, or a crisis of any variety.  Rather, each panel serves as a poignant reminder of humanity’s shared loneliness. A reminder, too, that though we are all alone, we are all alone together.

B.J. Hollars is the author of several books, most recently Flock Together: A Love Affair With Extinct Birds and From the Mouths of Dogs: What Our Pets Teach Us About Life, Death, and Being Human, as well as a collection of essays, This Is Only A Test. Hollars serves as a mentor for Creative Nonfiction, a contributing blogger for Brain,Child  and the founder and executive director of the Chippewa Valley Writers Guild. An associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, he lives a simple existence with his wife, their children, and their dog. For his writing, visit www.bjhollars.com; for his podcasts, visit www.snippetspodcast.com.