Kendra Meinert

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Green Bay native Kristen Radtke is generating buzz in the literary world for her debut book, “Imagine Wanting Only This.”

The hardcover graphic memoir, released this week by Pantheon Books, uses her text and hand-drawn images to explore once-thriving cities that are now dying or dead due to natural disasters or hard economic times, from an abandoned mining town in Colorado to the steel mill town of Gary, Ind., to a deserted military base on the Phillipine Island of Corregidor.

Throughout its 288 pages, she also weaves in her life story, including growing up in Green Bay, the loss of her beloved Uncle Dan and learning in elementary school about the Peshtigo Fire of 1871, the deadliest wildfire in history. Her drawings include a re-imagining of that fire.

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The reviews have been strong. The Chicago Tribune calls it “wonderful and heartbreaking.” “The most beautiful graphic novel you’ll read all year,” says Newsweek. Men’s Journal called it “one of the most highly anticipated books of the year,” and Elle describes it as “a family drama, youthful romance, obsessive adventure and karmic inquiry wrapped in a coming-of-age tale.”

Radtke, who has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Iowa's Nonfiction Writing Program.and works in Brooklyn, N.Y., as an editor, writer and illustrator, also has gotten press from The New York Times, The New Yorker and the Washington Post. The Lost Angeles Times named her as one of its three authors to watch in 2017.

Her tour in support of “Imagine Wanting Only This” will bring her as close as Madison for an appearance May 4 at the Madison Public Library.

kmeinert@pressgazettemedia.com and follow her on Twitter @KendraMeinert