Lily Kim Qian’s New Book Puts Family History and Trauma in Full Color

During the pandemic, illustrator Lily Kim Qian was a senior in college. This period of quarantining, coupled with the brink of a new life chapter, pushed her into examining her parents’ choices and her upbringing. These reflections developed into Qian’s debut graphic novel, “Until We Meet Again,” which brings up questions about parental influences, belonging, and forgiveness.

The graphic novel is broken up into 10 vignettes, spanning the different periods of Qian’s life, beginning in her birth city of Toronto. The length of the first anecdote is short but sufficient in setting the stage. We meet Qian’s family members and see her most cherished moments while also getting clues into complex family dynamics.

In early scenes, Qian illustrates with blushes of pink, white, and lighter shades of blue to showcase fond memories with her father and her Popo. One early panel shows Qian as a young girl sitting next to her Popo while her Popo cooks a fried egg. In the images, Qian feels curious, then joyful — an image that might evoke nostalgia among readers about early memories. 

Throughout the memoir, Qian uses an intentional color palette to complement the interactions and bring the words to life. The airy, lighthearted flow of lighter colors showcase the joy and innocence of childhood, while darker blues, purples and blacks are incorporated as Qian’s life gets more challenging. 

“I wanted a limited color palette, but I wanted the palette to shift depending on where I, the character, was living in the narrative,” Qian says. “The early memories are cool purples, pinks, kind of reminiscent of the womb, but also a bit dreamy and hazy. “ 

When Qian goes in depth about her relationship with her mother, the palette changes. The soft shades of pink and purple disappear and are replaced by a black background with white lettering. This palette continues to shift back and forth as Qian deals with the complexities of the relationship with her mother, and Qian growing up herself. 

The Emotional Process 

Writing a memoir requires a level of vulnerability writers must be willing to unmask, even if it means bringing loved ones into a painful spotlight. In Qian’s case, the influential and complicated relationship she shares with her mother resurfaces throughout the book. Among many Asian cultures, which place strong emphasis on children supporting parents and maintaining family harmony, this truth-telling isn’t always welcomed.  

While writing and illustrating the memoir, Qian mentioned how mindful she was toward her parents. “I preferred to simplify some traumatic moments that I’ve included in the books without being too invasive on my parent’s privacy,” she shared. 

Publishing a story with her parents still living made Qian think about what she felt comfortable sharing, and what she felt her parents would want known. “After all, I am telling their story and I don’t want to overshare their stories. There is a certain process of selection there.” 

Qian’s mother was in and out of her life, going without contact for as long as six years, causing an emotional toll that Qian only realized later on. Qian shows a cognitive dissonance toward the responsibility she feels toward her mother and the integrity she owes herself. The only consistency in Qian’s life was that she and her father were always moving around — four moves by the time she was 10 years old, and plenty more before she entered college. 

“I did a lot of thinking back to my childhood and about how my upbringing shaped me as a person,” Qian recalls. “I wanted to resolve some things that I felt with my family, especially in relation to my mother.” 

As the story progresses, readers start to see Qian’s suppressed feelings emerge, as her childhood need to control her body image resurfaces, as conflicts occur in her first real relationship, and when the pressures of college compound. Qian starts to deal with her own mental health and the tribulations that come with that. While Qian was in her first relationship, she forgot to take her antidepressant medications, and went through her first withdrawal. The consequences were too much for her partner. 

For Qian, translating those experiences into a graphic memoir required making constant decisions about what each image carries and what weight words carry. 

“The words and images bounce off of each other,” Qian explains. “For me, sometimes I get inspired from what I write, and sometimes I have an image I want to include and then I will write something to accompany the image. So it’s really a back and forth.” 

Mental Health Stigma in Asian Culture 

Throughout Qian’s memoir, the stigma around mental health is a frequent topic as Qian grapples with her own demons and as her mother continues to reappear in Qian’s life. “The mentally ill are treated like the dead,” Qian writes about her mother. “I inherited the stigma. I wanted to pretend that she didn’t exist so I could live my life peacefully.” 

Once her mother finally agreed to be checked into a mental health facility and to start taking medication, Qian realized the severity of her mother’s mental illness. Qian also recognized the shame she once felt toward her mother and how she allowed a stigma toward mental health to influence her for so long.  

While her mother didn’t have support from the start to accept her own adversities, Qian states in her memoir, “Unlike my mother, I had kindness around me.” This sense of empathy has allowed Qian to look inward and accept all parts of her mother and herself. 

Remembering Memories and Completing Her Story 

In conversation, Qian talked about how memory can be surreal. While reflecting upon her own experiences, she started to think about herself from a third-person perspective when trying to capture the situations and events that occurred during her life. 

“It can be quite difficult at times, especially when you’re putting [memories] down on paper and trying to find a way to convey memory visually, because memory is very fickle and sometimes you don’t know if something happened exactly,” Qian says. “I tried to convey it in a way that was more surreal, to kind of emphasize how surreal memory can be.” 

During shared experiences, some people may remember certain parts more drastically than others. We also may forget some moments that other people in the same memory may remember. 

“It was therapeutic for me to have that layer of emotional attachment when I was examining memories,” Qian said. “It really helped me move on and resolve some things, [though] some things are not resolved.” 

Reflecting on her past while writing the book meant living in the past, present, and future, all at once. Qian recognized the feelings of agony and betrayal, but also recognized the acceptance of forgiveness. Her reflection while writing and illustrating helped her gain a deeper understanding of the relationships she shares with her family. Her parents had their own challenges that they couldn’t or didn’t know how to address, particularly during a time when society was not as supportive of mental health needs — unlike conversations today around mental health and generational trauma.

Forgiveness, Humanity, and Hope for Readers 

As readers take in Qian’s story, she hopes that people will understand that we’re all human and trying. “I hope this story helps people know they don’t have to be perfect all the time, and focus on living and trying their best,” she says. “I could have reacted to situations better, but at the end of the day, I hope people take this as a story about forgiveness toward yourself and your family.” 

Qian initially wanted her story to be shorter, with an original intent of around 100 pages. But she knew that wasn’t enough. As she continued to write and illustrate, she added pages, contexts, and more scenarios to elaborate on how she came to certain realizations in her life. Ending the book with 224 pages, Qian said, “It felt good to end the story with a hopefulness toward life. There are some things I wish I could fit, or take out, but I like that the story led itself to its own conclusion.” 

When we think back about our own past, there may be circumstances you wish you could have changed. Maybe things didn’t go according to plan. Maybe things were said that you wish you could take back. At the end of the day, you can’t turn the clock back, but you can move forward with the wisdom and knowledge you gain from your own perceptions of experiences. 

“Until We Meet Again” is Lily Kim Qian’s debut graphic novel and is now available online and at your local bookstore. Follow her on Instagram at @lkq.art.