"I Wish I Didn't Have to Tell You This," Reviewed by Diane Lick

Leningrad, Russia: 1980—the KGB is watching everyone and everything. How can a young Jewish artist fulfill his dream? Prize-winning author, Eugene Yelching, shares this difficult period in his life with readers in, “I Wish I Didn’t Have To Tell You This,” his second memoir, following “The Genius Under the Table,” published in 2021.

But wait! This is not your usual memoir. Yelching has chosen to write his memoir as a graphic novel for young adults.

But wait! Don’t put this book down! It’s not your usual graphic novel, this is ART! This story is told with visual emotion and just the right amount of text to carry the story along.

In 1980, a young artist is living in Leningrad and hoping to sell his art to a rich American at an illegal art show. Libby, an American college student studying in Leningrad, attends the show. They begin to spend time together and share what each likes about their home country. Of course the KGB has eyes on the illegal mingling of a Russian citizen and an American. All to soon Libby must return to America, just as the school year ends.

For a Jew, like the artist, life in Russia is dangerous, especially for a young man of conscription age. The KGB watches and arrests citizens. In 1981, the artist “escapes” to Siberia.  He is tricked into believing he would have more artistic freedom, and be safe from the Russian War in Afghanistan, if he went to Siberia.

Life there turns out to not be at all as he expected. The artist is even placed in a Siberian mental hospital. (The art in this section depicts just how bleak and dark Siberian life can be.) In 1982, the artist is allowed to return home where he finds life even more restrictive than when he left.

Things take a turn for the better when the artist’s grandmother lets it slip that Libby has returned to Leningrad for graduate school. The artist begins a hopeful search to reconnect with her and he does. The two finally get permission to marry, but again Libby must return to America without him. And again, the artist must “escape” his country.

It’s 1983 and he’s living in Moscow, in communist Russia. All he wants is to be able to join Libby, his wife, in America. Will he be allowed to cross the yellow line in the airport that Soviet citizens are not allowed to cross?

“I Wish I Didn’t Have to Tell You This” is an immersive story of love that offers readers a lesson in history and insights into human rights. But it’s the raw emotion depicted in the book’s graphics that will touch readers the most and give the book all the literary “feels” one can possibly experience.

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