Drawing Blood

An unforgettable, illustrated memoir of the years between 9/11 and the Occupy movement—in New York City and around the world—by the renowned underground artist and journalist.

“When the world watched me hardest, when my brain burned itself bloody, I could draw. No matter what, I had that. It was all I needed.”

In language that is fresh, bracing, and deeply moving—and illustrations that are rich, irreverent, and gorgeous—here is a memoir that will change the way you think about art, sex, politics, and survival in our times.

From a young age, Molly Crabapple was a rebel in search of a cause. After graduating from high school on New York’s Long Island, she left America for Europe and the Near East, a waiflike yet steel-sprung young artist plunging fearlessly into the faraway cultures she had come to love through the stories of her artistic heroes.

Returning to New York as an art student, she supported herself by working as a model, a burlesque performer, and an early model for the famous SuicideGirls. Eventually she landed a gig as house artist at Simon Hammerstein's legendary nightclub The Box, the epicenter of decadent Manhattan nightlife before the financial crisis of 2008—where she witnessed the class divide, between the bankers of Wall Street and the entertainers who walked among them in a bawdy, drug-fueled circus of mutual exploitation. Then, in the wake of the crash, the emerging Occupy movement galvanized Molly to lend her talent to a new form of witness journalism. Dubbed “Occupy’s greatest artist” byRolling Stone, she went on to write and illustrate stories from Guantanamo to Syria to Rikers Island to the labor camps of Abu Dhabi, transforming her work—her lifelong tool for making sense of the world around her—into a voice for the powerless.

Now, with the same blend of sharp-eyed reportage and unforgettable artwork that has marked her work in venues fromthe New York Times to Vanity Fair to Vice, Molly brings this tumultuous era back to life in a book that captures art and life in our times as viscerally as Patti Smith captured hers inJust Kids.

Drawing Blood features 117 color illustrations throughout and printed endpapers.