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Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
An astonishing, deeply moving graphic memoir about three generations of Chinese women, exploring love, grief, exile, and identity.
In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the stories of her grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.
Sun Yi was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with her daughter. Upon arrival, Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, used the proceeds to put Rose in an elite boarding school―and promptly had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her.
Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi's unexamined trauma and mental illness. Vowing to escape her mother’s smothering fear, Tessa left home and traveled to the farthest-flung corners of the globe (Antarctica). But at the age of thirty, it starts to feel less like freedom and more like running away, and she returns to face the history that shaped her.
Gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls' homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, it exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
In her evocative, genre-defying graphic memoir, Tessa Hulls tells the stories of her grandmother, Sun Yi; her mother, Rose; and herself.
Sun Yi was a Shanghai journalist caught in the political crosshairs of the 1949 Communist victory. After eight years of government harassment, she fled to Hong Kong with her daughter. Upon arrival, Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, used the proceeds to put Rose in an elite boarding school―and promptly had a breakdown that left her committed to a mental institution. Rose eventually came to the United States on a scholarship and brought Sun Yi to live with her.
Tessa watched her mother care for Sun Yi, both of them struggling under the weight of Sun Yi's unexamined trauma and mental illness. Vowing to escape her mother’s smothering fear, Tessa left home and traveled to the farthest-flung corners of the globe (Antarctica). But at the age of thirty, it starts to feel less like freedom and more like running away, and she returns to face the history that shaped her.
Gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls' homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, it exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published March 5, 2024
146 people are currently reading
7,463 people want to read
About the author
Tessa Hulls
1book65followersTessa Hulls is an artist/writer/adventurer who is equally likely to disappear into a research library or the wilderness. Her essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Atlas Obscura, and Adventure Journal, and her comics have been published in The Rumpus, City Arts, and The Margins. She has been awarded grants from the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture, 4Culture, and the Robert B McMillen Foundation, and received the Washington Artist Trust Arts Innovator Award. For the last almost-decade, she has focused on creating Feeding Ghosts, a graphic memoir that traces three generations of women in her family across a backdrop of Chinese history to explore the complicated ways that mothers and daughters both damage and save one another.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 234 reviews
May 20, 2024
What an accomplishment! I savored every page of Feeding Ghosts, absolutely floored by the labor and courage that went into the writing of this book. The inking is gorgeous, the history is clear, digestible, and devastating. This book threads the line between honesty and compassion in a way that I appreciate so much in any memoir, but especially one dealing with family. Hulls lays out the story of three generations of women starting with her grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who faced intense persecution during the rise of Communism in China, who penned a popular and scandalous memoir and then suffered a mental breakdown. This left her only daughter, Rose, a student at an elite boarding school with no parental figures and no other family to lean on. Eventually Rose earned a scholarship to an American university and in the end moved her mother into her California home. Sun Yi haunted that home during the author's own childhood. The unexamined trauma and codependency of Sun Yi and Rose drove the author to the extreme edges of the Earth, seeking freedom from their ghosts. But in the end, she stopped running from her family history and turned, instead, to face it. Shelve this book with Maus, Fun Home, Persepolis and The Best We Could Do. Re-read it for a second time and got even more out of it on a second pass.
September 16, 2024
I’m so impressed by this book. It’s a true work of an artist giving everything they have to their craft. The attention to detail and care for every page of this graphic memoir is quite remarkable. And of course, the stories of the three women that this book charts is moving and carefully rendered.
My only complaint is that I think it got a bit dense and repetitive at times. In the first half, especially, there is a lot of history that is told through large blocks of text, which I was not expecting for a book relying heavily on imagery. And in the latter half of the story, some of the elements felt redundant by that point and some sentiments repeated.
Don’t let that deter you from picking this up. It is incredibly well-crafted and emotional. I can imagine this having a very strong impact on children of immigrants as well, and those who have suffered from a lost history in their family, or a history that keeps people apart rather than pulling them together.
My only complaint is that I think it got a bit dense and repetitive at times. In the first half, especially, there is a lot of history that is told through large blocks of text, which I was not expecting for a book relying heavily on imagery. And in the latter half of the story, some of the elements felt redundant by that point and some sentiments repeated.
Don’t let that deter you from picking this up. It is incredibly well-crafted and emotional. I can imagine this having a very strong impact on children of immigrants as well, and those who have suffered from a lost history in their family, or a history that keeps people apart rather than pulling them together.
March 20, 2024
FEEDING GHOSTS by Tessa Hulls is an incredible and emotional graphic memoir. I loved this book! It made me cry so many times. Hulls shares her life growing up in the United States with her mother and both struggling with the intergenerational trauma of her grandmother’s fleeing Communist China and mental illness. There were several aspects to her family story that I related to and that made this a very moving read. This line really stood out to me: “In the US, being mixed felt like trying to build the foundations of a home in the open ocean between islands.� I’ve definitely felt lost at sea before between my two cultures. I really loved the care that Hulls put into this book with sharing her experiences and the Chinese history that informed her family’s life. The brilliant illustrations evoked the same emotions. I had to take breaks while reading this book and I loved every second of reading it.
Thank you to FSG Books for my ARC!
Thank you to FSG Books for my ARC!
March 22, 2024
This graphic novel combines two things I love: narrative history, and superb writing. I'm ordinarily skeptical about memoirs, because people tend to think of their lives as much more interesting than they really are, but trust me when I say that this one is remarkable. The tightly packed story feels like it's under pressure, as if it might burst out and escape at anymoment, if I don't hold on to the edges of it.
The graphic format is a perfect vehicle for memoir, and Tessa Hulls knocks it out of the park. She contains a whole world of experience, and is an expert at metaphors, analysis, and reflection.It took her a decade to research and write this, and that effort shows.
A word about the title: hungry ghosts in this context, would be the unfulfilled familial spirits of the past. In order to begin to heal intergenerational trauma, one needs to feed those ghosts. FEEDING GHOSTS is present tense, not just because the author is anchored in the present and reaching into the past, but also because this is always going to be an ongoing process.
Some of the content is disturbing, but also very real. In a way, facing terrible events is a way to honor the people who experienced them, to let them be seen, to let them matter. We can't pretend horrors didn't happen. All those traumas are folded into the genetic code passed down through generations.
There are many lines I could quote from the book, but these seem to encompass the thrust of the story as a whole:
"All history is contested. Evidence exists as a field of dots. And we connect them according to what lenses we employ to examine the past.
But there are unequivocal facts."
I appreciate everything about the author's approach: her raw honesty, her extensive research, her grasp of psychological concepts, and even her illustrative use of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots to represent the futulity of China's many struggles throughout history.
This is one of the best 2024 books I've read this year.
The graphic format is a perfect vehicle for memoir, and Tessa Hulls knocks it out of the park. She contains a whole world of experience, and is an expert at metaphors, analysis, and reflection.It took her a decade to research and write this, and that effort shows.
A word about the title: hungry ghosts in this context, would be the unfulfilled familial spirits of the past. In order to begin to heal intergenerational trauma, one needs to feed those ghosts. FEEDING GHOSTS is present tense, not just because the author is anchored in the present and reaching into the past, but also because this is always going to be an ongoing process.
Some of the content is disturbing, but also very real. In a way, facing terrible events is a way to honor the people who experienced them, to let them be seen, to let them matter. We can't pretend horrors didn't happen. All those traumas are folded into the genetic code passed down through generations.
There are many lines I could quote from the book, but these seem to encompass the thrust of the story as a whole:
"All history is contested. Evidence exists as a field of dots. And we connect them according to what lenses we employ to examine the past.
But there are unequivocal facts."
I appreciate everything about the author's approach: her raw honesty, her extensive research, her grasp of psychological concepts, and even her illustrative use of Rock 'em Sock 'em Robots to represent the futulity of China's many struggles throughout history.
This is one of the best 2024 books I've read this year.
January 28, 2025
An interesting, if overlong, graphic memoir about generational trauma passed from grandmother to mother to daughter. Tessa Hulls uncovers the details of her mother and grandmother's difficult lives in China and how all that shaped the antagonistic and estranged relationship she has had with her mother while growing up in northern California.
Hulls starts her family history near the end of World War II with her grandmother, Sun Yi, being hounded by Mao Zedong's minions for being an outspoken journalist and single mother of a multiracial child. Sun Yi escapes the Cultural Revolution by fleeing with her daughter to British-controlled Hong Kong, where she starts life anew but is soon lost to disabling mental illness for the majority of her remaining life, leaving her daughter Rose to grow up with an absent father and a dependent mother. Still, Rose is able to emigrate to the United States, start a family, and bring her mother over from Hong Kong to provide at-home care that lasted for decades.
Hulls wrestles with how her mother's experiences and Chinese upbringing set expectations for their mother/daughter relationship that conflict with Hulls' assimilation into American culture, desire for independence, and search for her own identity as a multiracial person. The act of writing this book serves as a tool to attempt healing the breach that grew between them.
The execution of the book suffers a bit from repetition and an overabundance of visual and textual metaphors -- trains, boats, cowboys, ghosts, sparrows, etc., etc. -- for the author's emotions and relationships.
I found it a bit odd that Hulls' brother and father barely show up in the background. Pops gets a pass? And bro's experience growing up in the same environment is irrelevent? This seems a rather large omission in a book that otherwise goes overboard in detail.
Side note: In a nice bit of synchronicity, my wife and I read G. Neri's just a week prior and wondered for a moment what sort of person would travel to the frozen continent to be a janitor or a cook and if our daughter should consider giving it a go. And then this book has a chapter about how the author did go there to be a cook as part of her quest for independence and distance from her mother.
(Best of 2024 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
� Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2024
� Publishers Weekly 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
� NPR's Books We Love 2024: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels
This book made the PW and NPR lists.)
Hulls starts her family history near the end of World War II with her grandmother, Sun Yi, being hounded by Mao Zedong's minions for being an outspoken journalist and single mother of a multiracial child. Sun Yi escapes the Cultural Revolution by fleeing with her daughter to British-controlled Hong Kong, where she starts life anew but is soon lost to disabling mental illness for the majority of her remaining life, leaving her daughter Rose to grow up with an absent father and a dependent mother. Still, Rose is able to emigrate to the United States, start a family, and bring her mother over from Hong Kong to provide at-home care that lasted for decades.
Hulls wrestles with how her mother's experiences and Chinese upbringing set expectations for their mother/daughter relationship that conflict with Hulls' assimilation into American culture, desire for independence, and search for her own identity as a multiracial person. The act of writing this book serves as a tool to attempt healing the breach that grew between them.
The execution of the book suffers a bit from repetition and an overabundance of visual and textual metaphors -- trains, boats, cowboys, ghosts, sparrows, etc., etc. -- for the author's emotions and relationships.
I found it a bit odd that Hulls' brother and father barely show up in the background. Pops gets a pass? And bro's experience growing up in the same environment is irrelevent? This seems a rather large omission in a book that otherwise goes overboard in detail.
Side note: In a nice bit of synchronicity, my wife and I read G. Neri's just a week prior and wondered for a moment what sort of person would travel to the frozen continent to be a janitor or a cook and if our daughter should consider giving it a go. And then this book has a chapter about how the author did go there to be a cook as part of her quest for independence and distance from her mother.
(Best of 2024 Project: I'm reading all the graphic novels that made it onto one or more of these lists:
� Washington Post 10 Best Graphic Novels of 2024
� Publishers Weekly 2024 Graphic Novel Critics Poll
� NPR's Books We Love 2024: Favorite Comics and Graphic Novels
This book made the PW and NPR lists.)
Want to read
December 1, 2023If only my arc copy quality wasn't so shitty. My myopic eyes can't see shit. 😭😭😭
April 14, 2024
This is easily my favorite book I’ve read this year and one of the most relatable books I’ve read in my life. There were many things I loved about it: the beautiful illustrations, deeply researched tidbits on Chinese history, courageous story-telling of deeply personal family strife and trauma. I also loved that it made me want to inquire more about my own family history, as I have truly only heard bits and pieces growing up and by no way know or understand the depths of my family’s experience during the Cultural Revolution and living under Communism.
Another thing I loved was how Hulls described growing up with two cultures and no one really knowing how to categorize her. I think I similarly struggled a lot growing up with thinking about how other people perceived me, rather than spending more energy just being comfortable with myself. I was also worried about not being accepted into Asian spaces, but as cheesy as it sounds, I first had to accept myself.
I was also really shocked by Hulls� grandmother’s experience being a political prisoner in Mainland China. It was especially shocking how she wasn’t officially locked up, but the constant surveillance and regular questioning was almost worse than being locked up in a cell and generally left alone. The Party really seemed like Big Brother, and it seems very easy for someone like Hulls� grandmother to really suffer from that mentally.
The book also gave a lot of hope around rebuilding relationships. It was really beautiful to see how writing the book brought Hulls and her mother much closer after many years of struggle. The research trips to China were also a highlight of the book for me, especially when the two got to visit their family after decades of being gone, and for Hulls, the first time. I really admire her learning Chinese to connect with her family and how much it meant to them. I similarly have always had the desire to deepen my Chinese language skills to connect more deeply with my family.
Hulls also leads such a unique and interesting life! I really respect the concept of finding seasonal work that gives you enough time and money to do the things you are passionate about. Although Hulls mentions the lifestyle getting tiring after many years, the concept of living in new places and being fully in nature really speaks to me.
Finally, the amount of effort it takes to write and illustrate such a moving tale is so impressive. I went to Hulls� book talk in New York and thought she did a wonderful job talking about the work and how she thought about putting it all together. She also spoke about how lonely it was, especially during COVID, and how she probably won’t attempt something like this again. Regardless, I would love to read/see anything else she releases next, whether it be her work as a painter/artist or writer. 10/10 recommend this book!
Another thing I loved was how Hulls described growing up with two cultures and no one really knowing how to categorize her. I think I similarly struggled a lot growing up with thinking about how other people perceived me, rather than spending more energy just being comfortable with myself. I was also worried about not being accepted into Asian spaces, but as cheesy as it sounds, I first had to accept myself.
I was also really shocked by Hulls� grandmother’s experience being a political prisoner in Mainland China. It was especially shocking how she wasn’t officially locked up, but the constant surveillance and regular questioning was almost worse than being locked up in a cell and generally left alone. The Party really seemed like Big Brother, and it seems very easy for someone like Hulls� grandmother to really suffer from that mentally.
The book also gave a lot of hope around rebuilding relationships. It was really beautiful to see how writing the book brought Hulls and her mother much closer after many years of struggle. The research trips to China were also a highlight of the book for me, especially when the two got to visit their family after decades of being gone, and for Hulls, the first time. I really admire her learning Chinese to connect with her family and how much it meant to them. I similarly have always had the desire to deepen my Chinese language skills to connect more deeply with my family.
Hulls also leads such a unique and interesting life! I really respect the concept of finding seasonal work that gives you enough time and money to do the things you are passionate about. Although Hulls mentions the lifestyle getting tiring after many years, the concept of living in new places and being fully in nature really speaks to me.
Finally, the amount of effort it takes to write and illustrate such a moving tale is so impressive. I went to Hulls� book talk in New York and thought she did a wonderful job talking about the work and how she thought about putting it all together. She also spoke about how lonely it was, especially during COVID, and how she probably won’t attempt something like this again. Regardless, I would love to read/see anything else she releases next, whether it be her work as a painter/artist or writer. 10/10 recommend this book!
May 19, 2024
I love graphic memoirs and this was on hell of an account.
The only gripe is (and it’s a very small one) that it was very repetitive at times and slightly too long. The last 100 pages or so could’ve been condensed down to a few pages without sacrificing any of the stories.
All in all though, great story especially her grandmother’s section.
The only gripe is (and it’s a very small one) that it was very repetitive at times and slightly too long. The last 100 pages or so could’ve been condensed down to a few pages without sacrificing any of the stories.
All in all though, great story especially her grandmother’s section.
March 11, 2024
I'm not crying you're crying
May 5, 2024
Truly an astonishing book. Explores generational trauma and mother daughter relationships I didn’t know was possible. The art is positively stunning. Speaks truths both specific to Chinese history and immigration and more universal about the difficulties of relationships with those you love the most. A must read, one of my favorites of all time.
April 3, 2024
4.5 stars--GHOSTS is a stunning and brave graphic novel that examines the roles culture, mental illness, and generational trauma have had in shaping three generations of the author's family. An engaging, thought-provoking page-turner that really shows off the power of this medium.
September 22, 2024
for the first 50% this read very much like a history book � incredibly fascinating but also very dense. the inking added to sense of density. there was so much happening on the page on every page. this was intentional im sure.
i find it interesting that the author kept interjecting in the narrative that she struggled to write this without imposing her emotions onto the page. i thought the opposite - at times, it read as quite detached and clinical.
i found this triggered some thoughts on my end, mainly on the ethics of memoir writing. whose story is it to tell really?
overall an interesting and thought-provoking read.
i find it interesting that the author kept interjecting in the narrative that she struggled to write this without imposing her emotions onto the page. i thought the opposite - at times, it read as quite detached and clinical.
i found this triggered some thoughts on my end, mainly on the ethics of memoir writing. whose story is it to tell really?
overall an interesting and thought-provoking read.
March 5, 2024
Yes! I believe this book is released into the wild today? (I also remembered it was Tessa Hulls who recommended FRANKIE FURBO to me.)
FEEDING GHOSTS is a tremendous achievement—a fierce and artful recounting of generational and historical trauma, a tale of mothers and daughters that is rife with hard-won wisdom and surprising humor. It is also a beautiful object to travel through, a testament to so much talent, work and growth, so much time; what impresses me most is how the inventiveness of the art is matched by the richness of the voice, the narrative movement through time, and the sharpness of the prose. (“For my entire life, I have always heard the echoes of those waters, calling after me and my mom.� “So which came first? The memoir or the mental illness? Or were they, even then, somehow bound together, one and the same?� “Every memoir is a crafted act of highlight and omission.�) This book is a demonstration of how closed hearts might be opened.
FEEDING GHOSTS is a tremendous achievement—a fierce and artful recounting of generational and historical trauma, a tale of mothers and daughters that is rife with hard-won wisdom and surprising humor. It is also a beautiful object to travel through, a testament to so much talent, work and growth, so much time; what impresses me most is how the inventiveness of the art is matched by the richness of the voice, the narrative movement through time, and the sharpness of the prose. (“For my entire life, I have always heard the echoes of those waters, calling after me and my mom.� “So which came first? The memoir or the mental illness? Or were they, even then, somehow bound together, one and the same?� “Every memoir is a crafted act of highlight and omission.�) This book is a demonstration of how closed hearts might be opened.
November 13, 2024
This was an incredible project on Tessa's part and a retrospective journey for me. I have a soft spot for multigenerational saga and memoirs that reveal humanity with all its flaws through relationships and human connections; so I might have added an extra positive rating for the author's efforts and its personal impact on me.
I cannot imagine how much time and detailing Tessa put into researching the context that influences the identities of her mother and grandmother. The book is dense with information on the politics and history of all the places her family has once considered home, sprawling out in between the detailed and fluid brushstrokes of her artwork, all of which set the gloomy, uncertain, and interpretative atmosphere of the story, or better, Tessa's journey in understanding herself by understanding the generations before her. This project is a version of something I would like to engage later in my life to reconcile with my mother where needed, our rooted past, and the rest of my family.
The most intriguing aspect of Tessa's project is her narrative. This book is so dense because she constantly feels the need to backtrack, add more context, explain her feelings and sometimes others' behaviors on their behalf. This could be considered a flaw, but I find it vulnerable and relatable. I can understand having said or done something I knew I shouldn't have when it comes to dealing with family, and wanting to explain myself to those who may hear. This aspect also sheds a light on Tessa's inner dialogue and guilt that forces her to overshare in order to avoid any further misunderstanding, perhaps in an attempt to hold onto control of the narrative.
Overall, a very impactful story for me. Definitely something I want to revisit in the future when I eventually want to be closer to my mom physically and emotionally.
I cannot imagine how much time and detailing Tessa put into researching the context that influences the identities of her mother and grandmother. The book is dense with information on the politics and history of all the places her family has once considered home, sprawling out in between the detailed and fluid brushstrokes of her artwork, all of which set the gloomy, uncertain, and interpretative atmosphere of the story, or better, Tessa's journey in understanding herself by understanding the generations before her. This project is a version of something I would like to engage later in my life to reconcile with my mother where needed, our rooted past, and the rest of my family.
The most intriguing aspect of Tessa's project is her narrative. This book is so dense because she constantly feels the need to backtrack, add more context, explain her feelings and sometimes others' behaviors on their behalf. This could be considered a flaw, but I find it vulnerable and relatable. I can understand having said or done something I knew I shouldn't have when it comes to dealing with family, and wanting to explain myself to those who may hear. This aspect also sheds a light on Tessa's inner dialogue and guilt that forces her to overshare in order to avoid any further misunderstanding, perhaps in an attempt to hold onto control of the narrative.
Overall, a very impactful story for me. Definitely something I want to revisit in the future when I eventually want to be closer to my mom physically and emotionally.
August 27, 2024
Wow! This graphic memoir was OUTSTANDING! Artist/author Tessa Hulls examines the intergenerational trauma that lived like ghosts within her grandmother to her mother to herself. Her grandmother was a bold outlier, working as a journalist, writing a bestselling memoir about living in communist China that was banned by her country and having a child with a Swedish diplomat who left and took no responsibility for his actions. Interrogated and brainwashed repeatedly by Chinese government whom labeled her a rebel, her grandmother barely made it to Hong Kong to give her daughter a chance at a real education when she herself began to experience a break in her mental stability - a schism that would never be repaired as she spent the rest of her life in/out of mental institutions and on antipsychotics. Tessa's mother emigrated to the United States for college and similar to her mother - had children with a white man. Tessa does a remarkable job detailing the political turmoil of China in relation to her grandmother and mother's life and how the turmoil led in large part to the family's shared trauma. Due to her grandmother's mental instability, Tessa's mother was forced to grow up quickly and care for her mother, so that when she did become a parent herself to Tessa, there were a lot of unresolved issues. This is such a journey and a great education on China's history. Tessa provides a fantastic articulation of intergenerational trauma - specifically to bi-racial women as well as a peak into how her and her mother both took steps to heal and ultimately feed the ghosts. I would definitely recommend it!
Some of my favorite quotes:
My relationship with my mother has been largely defined by my absence.
-
She always was a drowning woman, trying desperately to throw me on the shore so I would not drown with her
-
I watched my mother suddenly become four and sixty years old, her hand resting on two hearts.
Together, we stood in the last room where her mother had been well enough to be a mother.
The last room where she was allowed to be a child.
-
Suddenly, I saw the raw pain of a child who had never been wanted. But what truly stopped me short was how she said “dad�, not “my dad.�
The intimacy of that two-letter omission made my chest clench. Because I recognized that I pair “my� and “mother� in the exact same way.
In a healthy parent/child dynamic, the “my� is unnecessary because the bond of belonging is self-evident.
But if a child must balance the yearning of wanting comfort from a parent who also illicits fear, “my� cleaves into two words of contradiction, implying closeness while maintaining distance.
My: A word to remind me of a link I don’t know how to feel.
My: A word to keep two more letters of safety between “me”and “Mom.�
-
But like the writer, Josie Sigler said, “You can’t take too much credit for your strengths without thanking the wounds that engendered them.�
-
A woman is born carrying all the eggs she will ever have. We grow inside our mothers while our mothers grow inside our grandmothers. Three matrilineal generations hold life within one body, and echoes of this link endure.
We don’t just inherit physical traits: we carry the anxiety and terror our mothers and grandmothers held within their bodies while they were pregnant.
-
Someone has to feed the ghosts.
-
I’m learning how to stand closer to my mother’s pain. And in order to do that, I’m having to learn how to stand closer to my own.
-
Mom, I’m sorry for how much my walls hurt you. And that I could never give you love in the language you needed. I am sorry that all I knew how to do was close myself off.
But I hope you can see that I shut myself out every bit as much as I shut you out, and that it’s only through these pages that I found a way back.
I couldn’t give you access to something I could not reach within myself. And I couldn’t embrace myself until I understood our ghosts.
-
I felt the weight of all we carried between us
� the frightened children we hid inside our chest, two little girls who sealed away their hearts.
-
Making this book carried me to the part of my mother I needed to know, to who she was before the flood.
These pages revealed a terrified child who watched trauma steal from her the two things she most wanted:
The ability to have a mother who felt safe to love.
And the ability to be a mother who felt safe to love.
I needed to see that child before I could understand why the love between my mother and me grew from damage. Before I could bring tenderness to my fear.
Mom, I may never be able to hold you in the way you need me to, but within these pages, every drop of ink is my attempt at an embrace.
Some of my favorite quotes:
My relationship with my mother has been largely defined by my absence.
-
She always was a drowning woman, trying desperately to throw me on the shore so I would not drown with her
-
I watched my mother suddenly become four and sixty years old, her hand resting on two hearts.
Together, we stood in the last room where her mother had been well enough to be a mother.
The last room where she was allowed to be a child.
-
Suddenly, I saw the raw pain of a child who had never been wanted. But what truly stopped me short was how she said “dad�, not “my dad.�
The intimacy of that two-letter omission made my chest clench. Because I recognized that I pair “my� and “mother� in the exact same way.
In a healthy parent/child dynamic, the “my� is unnecessary because the bond of belonging is self-evident.
But if a child must balance the yearning of wanting comfort from a parent who also illicits fear, “my� cleaves into two words of contradiction, implying closeness while maintaining distance.
My: A word to remind me of a link I don’t know how to feel.
My: A word to keep two more letters of safety between “me”and “Mom.�
-
But like the writer, Josie Sigler said, “You can’t take too much credit for your strengths without thanking the wounds that engendered them.�
-
A woman is born carrying all the eggs she will ever have. We grow inside our mothers while our mothers grow inside our grandmothers. Three matrilineal generations hold life within one body, and echoes of this link endure.
We don’t just inherit physical traits: we carry the anxiety and terror our mothers and grandmothers held within their bodies while they were pregnant.
-
Someone has to feed the ghosts.
-
I’m learning how to stand closer to my mother’s pain. And in order to do that, I’m having to learn how to stand closer to my own.
-
Mom, I’m sorry for how much my walls hurt you. And that I could never give you love in the language you needed. I am sorry that all I knew how to do was close myself off.
But I hope you can see that I shut myself out every bit as much as I shut you out, and that it’s only through these pages that I found a way back.
I couldn’t give you access to something I could not reach within myself. And I couldn’t embrace myself until I understood our ghosts.
-
I felt the weight of all we carried between us
� the frightened children we hid inside our chest, two little girls who sealed away their hearts.
-
Making this book carried me to the part of my mother I needed to know, to who she was before the flood.
These pages revealed a terrified child who watched trauma steal from her the two things she most wanted:
The ability to have a mother who felt safe to love.
And the ability to be a mother who felt safe to love.
I needed to see that child before I could understand why the love between my mother and me grew from damage. Before I could bring tenderness to my fear.
Mom, I may never be able to hold you in the way you need me to, but within these pages, every drop of ink is my attempt at an embrace.
August 24, 2024
Beautifully written, self-aware, and deeply reflective. The history, and its effects on individuals were infuriating. I believe the cruelty following the Communist takeover of China didn’t occur all of a sudden—there are some even bigger collective ghosts trace back long before 1949.
Reading about the author’s journey with generational trauma makes me feel validated in my experiences. It helped alleviate some of the disassociation and indifference that stemmed from the belief/knowledge that“my parents (and lots others) had it way worse�, which often prevents me from acknowledging and processing my traumas as what they are.
This is a book I’ve been wanting to find—hearing from others like me, who didn’t experience a single catastrophic traumatic event, but still suffer the “aftershocks� of trauma. (Actually I’m starting to question if it’s even right to frame my childhood like this, considering I was severely emotionally abused, frequently beaten from age 2 to 13, and the two times my mother threatened and initiated murder-suicide with me when I was 7 and 12, among other things.)
Reading about the author’s journey with generational trauma makes me feel validated in my experiences. It helped alleviate some of the disassociation and indifference that stemmed from the belief/knowledge that“my parents (and lots others) had it way worse�, which often prevents me from acknowledging and processing my traumas as what they are.
This is a book I’ve been wanting to find—hearing from others like me, who didn’t experience a single catastrophic traumatic event, but still suffer the “aftershocks� of trauma. (Actually I’m starting to question if it’s even right to frame my childhood like this, considering I was severely emotionally abused, frequently beaten from age 2 to 13, and the two times my mother threatened and initiated murder-suicide with me when I was 7 and 12, among other things.)
June 13, 2024
All I can say is WOW! Tessa Hulls has written and illustrated a monumental memoir/family history documenting the stories of her grandmother, mother and herself, intertwining Chinese history with the generational trauma that all experienced. This was heart-rending and difficult to read at times, but so rewarding in the end. Highly, highly recommended.
November 13, 2024
4.5 stars. A powerful, riveting, wandering journey through the intergenerational trauma threading through three generations. So much to love and carry from this book: the insights on trauma in the body, the historical narrative lending deep context to personal experiences, the exquisite haunting artwork, how the author breaks the fourth wall and takes us with her as she researches her family and works through her own memories and relationships with her mother. My one critique is the structure of the timeline, which often felt disjointed. We'd be in the midst of a story and then yanked back to the present too soon, then yanked to another timeline. It was hard to stay with the narrative at times. Otherwise, this one will be added to my bookshelf- it is impeccable.
December 5, 2024
my first graphic novel! wow, I savored every single page of this book. what a deeply heart wrenching story that journeys through the wide range of socio-political and emotional complexities that lie beneath intergenerational familial trauma. reading this memoir was so palpably cathartic and healing. I hope my mother will read this and find refuge in its pages, just as I did. thank you Tessa Hulls
February 1, 2025
Unfortunately, I'm DNF'ing this book at 46%. I have a lot of thoughts.
First, I hated the art style. It's too dark (not content wise, but actual art-wise). I dislike this style of black backgrounds, black shapes - like the writing has been etched on a black page.
Second, I thought this was going to be a story about a woman's grandmother and her history in China. But that's such a small piece of the story. In reality, the story is about a woman's dysfunctional relationship with her mother and grandmother, and their massive dysfunction with each other. And while that can be interesting, in this case it's way too long and much too repetitive. I'm less than halfway through and I'm so bored of reading the same things.
And this bring me to my third issue. This story would be so much better as a book than a graphic novel. I don't think I've ever thought that before, but it's true here. The whole book is just faces and text bubbles. It's hard to read, and a slog to get through the content. The pictures add nothing to the story.
I can see from the rating that I'm in the minority here, and that's fine. I don't discourage anyone from reading it. But it just isn't for me.
First, I hated the art style. It's too dark (not content wise, but actual art-wise). I dislike this style of black backgrounds, black shapes - like the writing has been etched on a black page.
Second, I thought this was going to be a story about a woman's grandmother and her history in China. But that's such a small piece of the story. In reality, the story is about a woman's dysfunctional relationship with her mother and grandmother, and their massive dysfunction with each other. And while that can be interesting, in this case it's way too long and much too repetitive. I'm less than halfway through and I'm so bored of reading the same things.
And this bring me to my third issue. This story would be so much better as a book than a graphic novel. I don't think I've ever thought that before, but it's true here. The whole book is just faces and text bubbles. It's hard to read, and a slog to get through the content. The pictures add nothing to the story.
I can see from the rating that I'm in the minority here, and that's fine. I don't discourage anyone from reading it. But it just isn't for me.
June 21, 2024
A phenomenal graphic memoir that's well worth sitting with. The nuance, the depth, the breadth... just incredibly well done.
June 3, 2024
Woof, this is a doozy of a book, but also I loved it. This is so full of trauma and learning to heal from it, finding ways to healthy relationship, and all the ways context matters when it comes to personal stories and experiences. This was a rough ride, but absolutely worth it.
September 25, 2024
Maus comparisons are both fitting and flattering.
A gorgeous feat of artwork that beautifully ties two themed stories together between global and familial history, even if the narrative connection between the two is a little less smoothly presented.
I learned, I laughed, and my heart broke a little. What more can you ask for from a book!?
A gorgeous feat of artwork that beautifully ties two themed stories together between global and familial history, even if the narrative connection between the two is a little less smoothly presented.
I learned, I laughed, and my heart broke a little. What more can you ask for from a book!?
June 5, 2024
Reading 2024
Book 98: Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
Saw this graphic memoir a few places. I love a good graphic memoir, so I preordered the book.
Synopsis: Gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls' homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, it exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
Review: When the synopsis says “gorgeously rendered� it is not joking. The art in this book is amazing. The story is heavy and weighted down with the mom’s backstory, steeped in Chinese history. I wanted more of the family story with a bit less history. I did not get in the flow of this memoir and can only rate the book based on my ability to connect with the story, 3.5⭐️ for the art and memoir parts.
Book 98: Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls
Saw this graphic memoir a few places. I love a good graphic memoir, so I preordered the book.
Synopsis: Gorgeously rendered, Feeding Ghosts is Hulls' homecoming, a vivid journey into the beating heart of one family, set against the dark backdrop of Chinese history. By turns fascinating and heartbreaking, inventive and poignant, it exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
Review: When the synopsis says “gorgeously rendered� it is not joking. The art in this book is amazing. The story is heavy and weighted down with the mom’s backstory, steeped in Chinese history. I wanted more of the family story with a bit less history. I did not get in the flow of this memoir and can only rate the book based on my ability to connect with the story, 3.5⭐️ for the art and memoir parts.
November 27, 2024
I wish she went deeper into the cultural differences between the American and Chinese perspectives on things like sacrifice as it relates to love or on autonomy being mainly defined by having individual freedom vs being defined as being distant and ungovernable. And how they have complex consequences on how differently she and her mother see their history and relationship with each other. Though that's definitely an ask more for a (cultural anthropologist?), so I'm just expressing a desire and not dinging the book for that.
A very honest and incredibly (in both a positive and negative too-much sense) introspective memoir. Memorably, when i mentioned to my sister the contours of the narrative she immediately guessed the insane asylum in Hong Kong where the author's grandmother was incarcerated.
Also learned at an event for this book that the author took an outlandish approach to writing this book, by essentially working on each page at the same time over years. Absolute mad lass
A very honest and incredibly (in both a positive and negative too-much sense) introspective memoir. Memorably, when i mentioned to my sister the contours of the narrative she immediately guessed the insane asylum in Hong Kong where the author's grandmother was incarcerated.
Also learned at an event for this book that the author took an outlandish approach to writing this book, by essentially working on each page at the same time over years. Absolute mad lass
May 3, 2024
I don't know where to start on how I feel after reading this book - maybe at the end, while flipping through the last pages until I burst out in tears. I am still crying while writing this review - haha. My review will not do justice to my experience of reading this book. Hulls is a precise storyteller; every adjective and metaphor helps pinpoint exactly what she wants to convey. I found this precision to be impressive and captivating. Her drawings helped visualize her exacting words - making this memoir one of the most powerful and moving ones I have read. I can only think what to do now with my matriarchal lineages. Probably interrogate them, love them, and explore the pain and weight that have carried me to be here today. Ah - already the best of 2024 for me.
July 7, 2024
3.5, to this indeed great graphic novel memoir. However, it felt too heavily a personal and psychological exploration for me to fully enjoy this.
You sure have to invest in this read, and the graphic novel form, while it helped to the narrative, didn't really seem to be that necessary to tell this story, but mostly accessory... or maybe a way for the author to express herself better.
Overall, a moving memoir, but a bit too repetitive of a few ideas and concepts, and too centered on the author's feelings and experiences (well, it's a memoir, of course it has to be that way), when some historic and cultural aspects seemed to be barely brushed.
You sure have to invest in this read, and the graphic novel form, while it helped to the narrative, didn't really seem to be that necessary to tell this story, but mostly accessory... or maybe a way for the author to express herself better.
Overall, a moving memoir, but a bit too repetitive of a few ideas and concepts, and too centered on the author's feelings and experiences (well, it's a memoir, of course it has to be that way), when some historic and cultural aspects seemed to be barely brushed.
September 10, 2024
Feeding Ghosts is a brave, incisive, and emotionally resonant graphic novel about uncovering the past within a family steeped in secrets. Hulls delves into her mother and grandmother's past in China while navigating the challenges she faced as a first generation biracial woman in America. Living with a protective mother and mentally ill grandmother, Hulls had to piece the past together herself in this gorgeously rendered artistic exploration of inheritances contrasted with wild stabs at independence. Tessa Hulls is a Washington author and artist whose debut graphic novel deserves wider readership.
December 12, 2023
[4.5/5 stars]
"I never thought we would be able to reach this point, where both of our stories have room in which to live."
This memoir follows three generations of Chinese women - set against the backdrop of Chinese history, it is a vivid journey in which Hulls, after her grandmother's passing, tries to connect with her family's history.
The book starts with a timeline to situate her family's history in Chiness history, which I found utterly insightful and helpful. Hulls, of mixed-race and severed from her culture, hopes to build a bridge between her and her mother, while finding the way home.
From retracing her mother and grandmother when they fled communist China to coming to US, this is a family's story across three continents and four languages. Amidst the process of cultural and language immersion, Hulls uncovers the way mental illness affects her family. The author explores the depths of the psyche, in which they live with the distorted love while struggling between external mask x internal reality.
The dramatic art conveys the intensity of the volatile and extreme emotions. Raw and poignant, Hulls doesn't hold back at exposing all the brokenness. Inner ghosts chase these women, often imprisoned in a chamber of darkness whilst their minds are doomed to collapse. Diving into her grandmother's history was an intimate act, often a heavy encounter.
In addition to the vestiges of trauma, one is allowed a better understanding of the Chinese history, especially regarding Chinese communist party. It might demand some patience from readers as deeply immersing into one of the darkest parts of Chinese history - plagued by oppression and reform - is dense. One aspect that I found compelling is the pause in-between when the author shares her own reflections, speaking directly with the reader. This book is, ultimately, about loss of culture, (generational) trauma, privilege, mental illness, identity, belonging and immigration.
Written with unfiltered honesty, FEEDING GHOSTS is a graphic memoir that Hulls spent six years working on. This is a healing journey about mending (damaged) relationships that just became a favorite of mine. I highly recommend this graphic memoir for those into Chinese history, mother-daughter relationship and mental health.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - MCD books . All opinions are my own ]
"I never thought we would be able to reach this point, where both of our stories have room in which to live."
This memoir follows three generations of Chinese women - set against the backdrop of Chinese history, it is a vivid journey in which Hulls, after her grandmother's passing, tries to connect with her family's history.
The book starts with a timeline to situate her family's history in Chiness history, which I found utterly insightful and helpful. Hulls, of mixed-race and severed from her culture, hopes to build a bridge between her and her mother, while finding the way home.
From retracing her mother and grandmother when they fled communist China to coming to US, this is a family's story across three continents and four languages. Amidst the process of cultural and language immersion, Hulls uncovers the way mental illness affects her family. The author explores the depths of the psyche, in which they live with the distorted love while struggling between external mask x internal reality.
The dramatic art conveys the intensity of the volatile and extreme emotions. Raw and poignant, Hulls doesn't hold back at exposing all the brokenness. Inner ghosts chase these women, often imprisoned in a chamber of darkness whilst their minds are doomed to collapse. Diving into her grandmother's history was an intimate act, often a heavy encounter.
In addition to the vestiges of trauma, one is allowed a better understanding of the Chinese history, especially regarding Chinese communist party. It might demand some patience from readers as deeply immersing into one of the darkest parts of Chinese history - plagued by oppression and reform - is dense. One aspect that I found compelling is the pause in-between when the author shares her own reflections, speaking directly with the reader. This book is, ultimately, about loss of culture, (generational) trauma, privilege, mental illness, identity, belonging and immigration.
Written with unfiltered honesty, FEEDING GHOSTS is a graphic memoir that Hulls spent six years working on. This is a healing journey about mending (damaged) relationships that just became a favorite of mine. I highly recommend this graphic memoir for those into Chinese history, mother-daughter relationship and mental health.
[ I received an ARC from the publisher - MCD books . All opinions are my own ]
January 16, 2025
This was fascinating. This author has done some amazing work healing the generational trauma held within herself and her mother and most of it was done through historical research for this book, which she supported through grants.
I'm so impressed with how succinctly she was able to condense the key points in China's recent history and then draw a straight line to how that specific history created the environment her grandmother and mother would be shaped by.
The author was born and raised in California and knew almost nothing about this history before she got her first grant to start exploring her grandmother's past, but every piece she learned explained so much in her own life and family dynamic, and she does a wonderful job recreating those lightbulb moments for the reader.
My only complaint is that it felt a little repetitive at times. But I've also done a lot of this type of generational healing myself so it's possible that the average reader would need to be reminded of the connections she was drawing in every section?? I really don't think so, though. I think streamlining this would have made it just about perfect, and it stood out enough that it's losing at least half a star for it.
Also, I know this is a weird note, but the ink used in this book STANK! It was so strange. There's a swirling black background used behind each page, even the blank ones, so the book is absolutely saturated with ink, and there was some kind of horrible fume to it. I had to read with my nose and mouth covered at all times or I would get a headache almost instantaneously. The smell has clung to the paper bookmark I was using, too.
I'm so impressed with how succinctly she was able to condense the key points in China's recent history and then draw a straight line to how that specific history created the environment her grandmother and mother would be shaped by.
The author was born and raised in California and knew almost nothing about this history before she got her first grant to start exploring her grandmother's past, but every piece she learned explained so much in her own life and family dynamic, and she does a wonderful job recreating those lightbulb moments for the reader.
My only complaint is that it felt a little repetitive at times. But I've also done a lot of this type of generational healing myself so it's possible that the average reader would need to be reminded of the connections she was drawing in every section?? I really don't think so, though. I think streamlining this would have made it just about perfect, and it stood out enough that it's losing at least half a star for it.
Also, I know this is a weird note, but the ink used in this book STANK! It was so strange. There's a swirling black background used behind each page, even the blank ones, so the book is absolutely saturated with ink, and there was some kind of horrible fume to it. I had to read with my nose and mouth covered at all times or I would get a headache almost instantaneously. The smell has clung to the paper bookmark I was using, too.
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