Nervosa

Immobilized by conflict between her obese parents, and especially by her father’s bullying, young Gold retreats into anorexia nervosa so she stays thin and never grows up. Certainly, she wants to escape adulthood as she sees it. Although her mother supplies some support, no one seems to empathize with her and her eating disorder, including dozens of doctors over decades of treatment. Her peers don’t like her much either, with her rebellious alter ego and her love of puzzles, word games, and Emily Dickinson. Scarcely more mentally settled after art school, she finally encounters a doctor who sees her and asks, “Don’t you want a future?” Now Hayley does, and she wants to write—like Emily Dickinson—about her life and what’s important to her. For her art, Gold (Letters to Margaret) uses effective, simple outlines and thematic coloring—green for medicine, blue for her alter ego, rose and other colors for the “real world” and its possibilities.