Small Altars

by Justin Gardiner

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.

Small Altars is structured in short sections recalling the panels of a comic book—some taking surprising shapes, some flashing forward or backward in time, but each contributing to the motion (and emotion) of the whole. The book also steps away, periodically, from the intimacy of its narrative, adapting the format of a glossary of terms which layer together the vocabularies of comic books with the terminologies and diagnoses related to cancer and schizophrenia. Small Altars offers a testament to how our most private stories often prove to be both minor and grand, heroic and heartbreaking in turn.

“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. With Small Altars, Justin Gardiner offers his late brother, himself, and all of us that great gift of attention, the hero’s favor of grace.”
—Joe Wilkins, author of Fall Back Down When I Die and When We Were Birds

“In Justin Gardiner’s deft hand, Small Altars explores one of life’s most complicated brothers. In prose that sings and snaps, sentences that explore the small, intimate moments of life, Gardiner sustains an emotional throughline of exquisite beauty. Here we get childhood loves of the movies, of comic books, of superheroes—but perhaps the greatest insight the reader will feel by the end is that ultimate love, in all its complication, between two siblings.”
—Taylor Brorby, author of Boys and Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land

“At its tender heart, Justin Gardiner’s Small Altars considers 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, Small Altars elevates 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.”
—Rajiv Mohabir, author of Whale Aria and A Hybrid Memoir

“This thoughtful portrait of remembrance and grief is like nothing I’ve read before. I devoured the book in a single sitting, so compelled was I by Justin Gardiner’s intelligent blend of research, introspection, pop-culture commentary, and family history. I hope you’ll forgive this pun, but Small Altars is indeed a marvel.”
—Elena Passarello, author of Animals Strike Curious Poses

80 pages, Paperback

Published January 12, 2024

Reviews

[Genevieve · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking and beautiful

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I write to you in praise of my friend Justin Gardiner’s new book, SMALL ALTARS — a work of art that is at once gorgeous, haunting, surprising, insightful, heartbreaking, and many other adjectives as well. Look, I’ve been a fan of Justin since olden days of him reeling off long poems by memory at the bonfires in North Carolina during the Warren Wilson College MFA residencies. And, as you can see, my Gardiner library has grown quite robust. But SMALL ALTARS is my very favorite. X-Men and brothers, mental illness and music, superheroes and grief, history and imagination — so much of the stuff of life is in this slim book. It made me cry; it made me smile; it lifted my heart. Lines from it still echo in my mind, long since I first read a draft manuscript. I mean it: it’s extraordinary. Give yourself the gift of reading this one, and sharing it.

[Andrew Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small Alters is exquisite, heartbreaking, and honest. The precise lyricism of every page, paragraph, and sentence chart a course through loss and something as close as possible to healing old wounds. I can't say enough about how much heart is in this book--so much more that it belies its slim spine. Like the best nonfiction, Gardiner investigates the minutiae of life (in this case, the MCU, Clare de Lune, and medicine) and somehow makes really big conclusions about his life, his brother's life, and the lives of his readers.

Here's one of those nifty sentences Gardiner was able to write that is a superb lay-up for us, the reader, to understand the pain and opportunity of life: "Perhaps all he needed was what we all need: the chance to work through the strange and confusing phases of who we are." This book is the chance offered from the writer to his audience to make sense of our own strange and confusing phases.

Take the chance.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small beautiful book