For a long time, I didn’t publish this article. It sat in my “drafts” section of my blog editor, growing longer and longer every month. Eventually the article got so long, it was embarrassing, and I figured I would never make this list public.
I started this article after many of you e-mailed me, asking innocently enough, “What are you reading these days?” You were probably just trying to be nice, conversational, light. You probably weren’t expecting this 6000+ word diatribe. However, you did ask. (And if you didn’t – and even if you did – please don’t feel compelled to read this. Just skip to the asterix* at the end.)
Reading has meant survival for me over the last two years. Thanks to my wonderful friends and family, my unread book box has been consistently overflowing, even when I was in isolation from all places public.
As I reflect on what I have read throughout my treatment, it is interesting how the immediate contemporary details of my life gave special context and meaning to each book I read. I now realize we cannot separate the book (or blog) from the subjective reader; it is the reader who makes the written words alive, making the reading experience uniquely hers by the story she herself brings to the table. Unread words are just marks on a page. Today I am thankful for all of you who have read my blog for so long, making my words come to life for you.
Without further ado, in the order of actual appearance…
Glitter and Glue by Kelly Corrigan
I was given this book by my mother before I got cancer. She probably noticed it was a book about mothers and daughters, a book about a young women who goes abroad to find herself. Even as I started the book, I thought it would be a nice light read, maybe a pleasant flashback to my pre-kid years when Mike and I traveled to foreign countries across the pacific. However, things started to get sketchy when the protagonist took a job nannying. When it was later revealed the mother died of cancer, I began to question my book choice. Was this really the first book I wanted to read in the hospital? However, a strange thing happened while I continued to read this story. A resolve started to develop deep within my soul. I would not be like the mother in this story who died. My family would not be motherless. I was going to survive. Maybe this was a good first book after all. With this determination firmly in place, I resisted reading anything else about cancer, fiction or non-fiction, for the next year. Why challenge my positive outlook?
The Art Forger by Barbara A. Shapiro
This book is a page-turning contemporary art world mystery, and more importantly, is completely unrelated to cancer. I enjoyed learning about the impressionist painter Edgar Degas and the fascinating underworld of art forgery. All the talk about brushstrokes and color inspired me to do some painting in the hospital, which became an enjoyable escape for me.
Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (4 novel series) – My Brilliant Friend, Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of a Lost Child
These intense four novels follow the lives and friendship of two women in a poor neighborhood in Naples from their earliest memories into their senior years. Ferrante’s literary ability to capture the nuances of real, complex relationship is unlike any I have read previously. She seemed able to put to words feelings I subconsciously understood but never imagined trying to describe. True to life, her characters were never all good or nor all bad. Each had moments of flying brilliance as well as periods of mistake, regret, and selfishness. I was plastered to these books from the moment I started them, living in an alternate Neapolitan reality, and they carried me through some hard times: my first induction chemo at Stanford, a trip to the ER where I encountered traumatizing anaphylactic shock, hot Indian Summer days hiding in my bedroom when I could not go outside. By allowing her characters to be wonderfully inspiring yet have glaring imperfections, Ferrante also allowed me to relax about the imperfections in my character and life.
The books raised some questions I continue to ponder. Where did Lena go? Who is the stronger character: Elena who works hard to “get out” of her neighborhood, only to build a career on writing about the imperfections of her neighborhood, or Lena, who stays in the neighborhood and tries to make it better, only to turn her back and run away in the end? Is violence (both personal and global) an unescapable aspect of human nature? Is friendship something we choose or fall into? (Anyone want to start a book club?)
Her characters and stories were so honest and raw, I couldn’t believe the novels were not at least partially autobiographical. In my curiosity, I researched Ms. Ferrante on the internet, a habit that became addictive after finishing a good book. As many of you probably know, author Elena Ferrante is an internationally popular Italian author who writes under a pen-name. Only her publisher knows her true identity, and she grants very few phone or e-mail correspondence interviews. At one point critics were speculating maybe she was actually a man or perhaps, several people. When questioned in an interview, Ms. Ferrante (always a feminist) replied “If a book is good and appeals to both genders, people can’t believe it is written by a woman. It must be a man author. Or several men.” In her interviews she stressed her value on truth in character and situation. It has to feel real. She said she scraps her work all the time, abandons whole manuscripts that do not ring true.
I found this point this interesting because my primary qualification for acceptance of my own blog entries was also truth. Not truth like all the little facts. Often names or times or events were slightly rearranged for the convenience of telling or emphasis of an idea. But truth in essence and honesty with myself. Without being honest with myself, the writing process was not cathartic and was worthless to me. However, what amazes me is the ability of authors like her to have truth in pure fiction. Imaginary characters living imaginary lives that are extremely true. How does she do it?
Where’d You Go Bernadette? by Maria Semple
This is a humorous, quirky and completely surprising novel about an overachieving mother who has a midlife crisis and literally runs away to Antarctica. I will always associate reading this book with chain-sucking lemon drops as I buried myself in this story to escape acute throat pain during my induction chemo. When I was discharged from the hospital, I was thrilled to leave this book behind as a present for the doting and passionate nurse who kept me supplied with lemon drops on her own dime.
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan
Finnegan captures waves and the surfing lifestyle with the precision and truthfulness that Ferrante (see above) captures relationships. It never occurred to me to describe waves and the unspoken mindset of surfing with the detail Finnegan awards these subjects in his memoir. Although one might think a book this long about surfing could get boring, I was captivated. Besides bringing to light thoughts I have had on the water that previously lived only in my subconscience, the book took me on a geographical journey that included ironically familiar haunts of my past – Maui, Samoa, San Francisco, Santa Cruz – as well as new places – South Africa, Portugal, New York. A virtual surf trip was just what I needed when I found myself in the hospital for the fourth time in 2015 with an unexpected fever. The book begs the question, “Why do we surf?”
Joy For Beginners by Erica Bauermeister
This contemporary novel features a woman who successfully overcomes breast cancer, a woman with twins, an aspiring writer…it’s no wonder the book was passed along to me. In the story, a group of friends agree to face personal challenges they have been avoiding. Whether its sorting through an ex’s books or floating the Colarado River, each woman finds new self-strength in facing their unique challenge. I couldn’t help wonder what would be my personal challenge? Unlike cancer, twins, job lay-offs which are challenges imposed from the outside world, the nature of this kind of challenge is internal. Some people feel you overcome cancer when you overcome the internal obstacles you are fighting. What are my internal obstacles? To truthfully answer this question, one must be prepared to look honestly and fearlessly at oneself. I am afraid I am not there yet.
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch by Henry Miller
Hidden among the symphony of words, words, words flowing from Henry Miller’s bizarre collection of essays and character sketches of his artistic life in the Big Sur mountains are amazing moments of philosophical clarity. I found myself jumping up mid-page, chemo lines and all, to grab a highlighter, a pencil to make notes in the sidelines. If there are flaws in your paradise, open more windows! …We resist only what is inevitable…. As I entered my days of room lock-d0wn, I increasingly related to the eccentric writer on the mountainside. I was living my own kind of writing-painting hermit life in the hospital room, connected only to the outside world through the passing visitor who braved the barriers of the hospital to find me or through written correspondence, of which there was so much! While I admit, I skipped a chapter here and there, especially when the prose turned to French or early century cultural references and became pages of blurring textual art, I did not skip the last story. The strange and so delicately depicted Moricand will forever haunt my memory as if I met him in person. We all know a Moricand, a person or a problem we try to fix who cannot be helped. We are usually told to let that person or problem go, but it can be so hard to let go.
Bossy Pants by Tina Fey
A good back-to-the-present follow-up to my surrealist journey in Big Sur. Tina Fey’s book was, of course, funny, especially the first several chapters where she pokes fun at her own parochial and very Greek upbringing. However, while theoretically interesting, the second of the half of the books’ humor was lost on me since I am pathetically ignorant of TV culture and the current events of the last decade. (Give me a break, I’ve had four kids in the last 10 years.)
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
We all live in a world of our thoughts, and sometime when we are alone our thoughts can become deafening. I found this to be true in the hospital with so many endless hours alone and I started writing my blog to silence the noise. In this latest book by Japan’s popular and prolific novelist Haruki Murakami, the story lives half in reality and half in the thought-mind of the protagonist and his mental journeys through dreams and memories. Is it necessary to face insecurities and suppressed pain of the past to move forward?
Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo
This is an incredible but completely true story of a group of families surviving on the airport slums of Mumbai (Bombay), a strip of wasteland sandwiched between a putrid disease infested swamp and the swanky modern international airport. Making its living buying and selling recyclables rummaged from the airport trashcans, this under-community amazingly hangs on to life by a thread, though disease, crime and death are rampant.
Despite the squalid living conditions and dismal opportunities for success, the children of the community to grow up with dreams – going to college, owning a house, marrying, living a long and healthy life. Like communities everywhere, families feud, take advantage of one other, show incredible acts of love, and find hope when hope seems futile.
Journalist Katherine Boo spent years living among these families, recording their conversations, observing their lives, and fastidiously collecting data – police records, medical reports, court records. The book reads like a novel, but in fact, is entirely non-fiction. I was completely mesmerized by the people’s ability survive on nothing. The descriptions of their living and medical conditions made my hospital existence seem like heaven. Is the hopefulness of youth inherent in human nature? It seemed unfathomable the children living in such poor conditions could be hopeful about anything and yet they had dreams and romances and diversions like any other youth across the world. Can a quest for righteousness and goodness grow out of lots of bad experiences? I would have said no, but there seem to be some people who can find the light even in the darkest of places.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
It was quite interesting to read this famous story of mental institution antics while myself in a hospital. I was taking some of the same medications as the characters! Coincidentally the story was based on Kesey’s experiences working at Menlo Park VA Hospital (only minutes from my hospital room) while doing graduate studies at Stanford University. Told through the stream-of-consciencenss eyes of a schizophrenic patient, the tale has a timelessness that reminds me of classic drama and leaves many topics for discussion. What does it mean to be insane? Who gets to define “insane”? Is Big Nurse insane? Is McMurphy insane? Are the patients happier inside or outside the ward? Is Chief Bromden ready to leave the ward? Did McMurphy want to die? Will Chief Bromden “survive” in the real world? Does McMurphy or Big Nurse “win” the battle for ward control?
In the Arms of Mr. Darcy by Sharon Lathan
This book is nothing more than a delicious, sensual contemporary sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, wonderfully romantic for those of us who like to submerge ourselves in the luscious lives of Jane Austen’s world. (Shh…don’t tell the nurses, I was up late reading under my covers with my book light, lost in the arms of Mr. Darcy.)
The Shift by Theresa Brown
Okay, I guess I did read one cancer book. This book caused a stir on all of E1 Unit. The book is a day in the life of a hem/onc nurse working in a bone marrow transplant unit Pennsylvania. Ms. Brown is dedicated to her profession, working 12-hour shifts, carefully holding (and sometimes losing) the lives of her cancer patients daily. When my Stanford nurse spied the cover this book, he instantly wrote down the title. Before the end of the day, all the nurses in the floor had learned of the book and they collectively ordered a couple of copies to pass among themselves. The next day, another nurse received a copy in a secret santa exchange. Little did my sister know her gift book to me would start an E1 craze!
The pace of the book compels you to read it quickly; I read it in an afternoon. Although I’m sure the book can be very educational for those not familiar with BMT, most of the technical information was so completely my life I just nodded and smiled. I was particularly interested in hearing about the other patients and what happened to them in the end. (Interesting where our priorities lie.) However, by the book’s last pages I just wanted the poor nurse to get home, put her feet up, and spend some time with her kids!
The Lake House by Kate Morton
If you have read Kate Morton’s other books, then you know you are in for a treat. Her latest book doesn’t disappoint. It is page turning novel with a complex mystery spanning generations and involving an old mysterious house on the beautiful coast of Cornwall. I read this book during my first weeks at the cottage, and as I strolled the streets of my new neighborhood, the ivy-covered turn-of-the-century brick mansions of this neighborhood merged with tale of my book into a an imaginary world of romantic mystery. I imagined hidden passageways and buried secrets in the old walls and secret gardens of Palo Alto. It seemed like every day I was finding a new gem. Then when the PK virus hit, I seriously dug into the novel and it took me to another world, a distraction I greatly needed. And although I was sad when the book came to the end, the conclusion was one of the most satisfying I have read in a long time.
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This a beautifully told narrative of the coming age of a young Greek-American who learns she’s a hermaphrodite when she is a young teenager. Like Elena Ferrante, Eugenides creates characters and families so imperfectly real and raw and true, I couldn’t believe the story wasn’t at least partially autobiographical. I (once again) searched the internet to discover his work is entirely fiction; Eugenides is not a hermaphrodite or even a doctor who studies hermaphrodites, although he is Greek and he did grow up in a Detroit suburb. Ironically, like Kesey, he did his graduate studies in creative writing at Stanford. I wondered, how would I respond if I learned a good friend or someone I was dating was a hermaphrodite? I related to the idea that you can’t change what biology (or God) hands you. I was given leukemia. It was not a choice. Similarly with the protagonist Cal, there is no choice. We are given the bodies we are given. It does not mean we are doomed. We take what we get, and move on in faith.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Having just finished Middlesex, I was very surprised to find the first part of this epic classic extremely similar. It reminded me of when a jazz player “quotes” a popular lick from another song in the midst of his solo. However, One Hundred Years of Solitude being the older of the two books I guess it was Eugenides quoting Marquez. Both featured multi-generations of immigrants. Both featured family members intermarrying due to isolating circumstances, fully knowing and worrying about the genetic implications, but irresistibly drawn to one anther. Both featured a strong dominant matriarch. However, from there this long and circular story moved on to new ground. Even when I was halfway through the novel I was considering not finishing the book. There were war chapters through which I plodded, seemingly rambling on and on for the sake of filling up space (and in retrospect perhaps this was point, because how often wars ramble on taking up space without logic or conclusion). But having won the Nobel prize in literature, I felt compelled to finish the novel and to try and understand it.
Throughout the book, I wondered what is the message of this book? However, by the end, the themes were loud and clear and so beautifully wrought in a show-not-tell kind of way, I was almost ready (though not quite) to read the book again. Ain my opinion, it was all about the cycles in time and families and towns and countries and war and innovation and weather. About how things don’t actually move forward, but they go around and around, repeating the same patterns, experiencing abundance and and devastation and then abundance again, over and over. About how problems aren’t really solved, just circumstances changed. About how generations in the families repeat the same character traits and tendencies. Yet all of this without being apocalyptic; simply a relieving acknowledgment of the truth (with a touch of the fantastic here and there for emphasis) that the world goes around and around, despite and in spite of what we do as individuals. In acknowleging this pattern, I felt a little lighter knowing some of what happens out there in the world is just the natural ebb and flow of life and death, good and evil, inspiration and depression, health and sickliness, not something that can or should be controlled.
The theme of solitude was also an interesting idea given my recent experience with solitude in the hospital. Many of the characters eventually find their way to self-imposed solitude towards the ends of their lives, locking themselves in rooms to study, tying themselves to a tree, floating in a bathtub of water and day dreaming, sewing the burial clothes for others, playing with small children in an attic. The solitude created by Marquez is not the stereotypical solitude of old-age which includes loneliness and helplessness, but a strange kind of peaceful escape, where the individual envelopes himself in a quiet blanket of inward self-discovery and imagination, as if finally in he has found a way to live in the world. However I am not sure if it is happiness. Are Marquez’s characters happy in their solitude? Was I happy in mine? I was getting through, at times I was even truly inspired, but I wouldn’t call it happiness.
Palo Alto: A Centennial History by Ward Winslow and the Palo Alto Historical Association
A beautiful pictorial and complete history of the city of Palo Alto.
Streets of Palo Alto by Palo Alto Historical Association
A strange little book that tells the story behind the name of every single street in Palo Alto in alphabetical order.
Nice Day for A Stroll: A Walk Through Palo Alto’s History by Matt Bowling
A guided walk through downtown Palo Alto highlighting interesting buildings and quirky stories from the past. Did you know the Jerry Garcia and other members of the Grateful Dead first met and jammed at a Palo Alto music store? I played a little Dead on my i-phone for a moment of reverence standing in the doorway of the old storefront, which is now under construction to become yet another trendy restaurant. In the bustle of Sunday afternoon lunch hour, nobody passing by seemed to recognize the grand significance of this monumental site, not even giving my HEPA-mask-wearing, straw-hat-toting, Dead-playing presence a passing glance.
52 Days of Cancer by Jordan Lane
A few blocks away from my cottage there was a “little library” box with a pleasant bench for sitting and watching the ever passing bike-traffic on Bryant Street. One of my enjoyable pastimes was to walk to this “library,” choose a book, and read on the bench for as long as I could tolerate my HEPA-mask. I picked up 52 Days of Cancer at the little library because it told the story of a woman’s successful treatment of lymphoma at Stanford, as told blog style through the son-in-law’s perspective. It seemed it was meant to be; it was time to read a cancer story.
It was fascinating to view the cancer process through the eyes of the caregiver, and for some reason it was very satisfying to read descriptions of the exact waiting rooms, units and hospital spaces I occupied only weeks prior. Also the account reminded me that each person’s experience is very unique to their body. Although this woman’s disease was similar to mine, she did not need a bone marrow transplant and her recovery took several weeks instead of several months like mine. However, during her treatment, she ended up in a very scary two week coma in which she was very close to death. Amazingly after two weeks, she came out of the coma and is now living cancer free. The human body can truly work miracles.
Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
I am sure many of you read this popular true account of the disastrous 1996 climbing season on Mt. Everest. So much of the author’s experience revolves around being cold and not having enough oxygen. On a very minuscule scale, I felt camaraderie with these audacious climbers. The hospital was also a cold place and having no head hair is cold too; I have developed lots of techniques for preserving heat – a whole collection of hats, scarves, jackets and IV-friendly shawls. I even know how to put a hot washcloth on my head to keep my sensitive scalp warm while I shower.
More profoundly, I felt connected to their physical struggle of living and moving about with limited oxygen. The definition of anemia is a below normal red blood count. Since red blood is responsible for carrying oxygen to every cell in your body, anemia necessarily means every cell in your body get less oxygen. Because of the leukemia and its successive treatments, I have been anemic to varying degrees since last July and have experienced first hand the ramifications of oxygen deprivation. In anemia’s mildest form, I felt fatigued by everyday activities, easily winded during exercise, light-headed or dizzy at times. When my blood counts further decreased, I felt relentless muscle cramping, fuzzy vision, impatience, mental slowness, forgetfulness, phantom sensations on my skin, chest pain, severe fatigue and I was easily overwhelmed. The behavior of the climbers when they were in conditions that limited their oxygen – angry, impatient, self-centered, confused – was at once recognizable to me.
Prior to having leukemia, I have never had the desire to climb any tall mountain where oxygen would become sparse nor scuba dive in the water where oxygen is also a precious commodity. Despite the wonders adventurers claim, the idea of no oxygen has always terrified me. Strangely, when I picked up this book, I found my perspective changed. I still did not want to climb Everest or scuba dive, but I was no longer afraid of the idea. I found myself thinking, well if I had to climb Everest to get rid this disease and get back my family, I would. How bad could it be in the face of another certain death? One foot in front of the other, listen to the leaders. Get back to safety. Luckily, the treatments at Stanford were no where near climbing Everest. I got off easy.
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
This is a collection of short stories which are really relationship portraits. While the characters all struggle with the unique challenge of straddling Indian and American culture, everyone will recognize the familiar relationship patterns that transcend nationality which Lahiri exposes so effortlessly: Mother-son, Father-daughter, Unrequited love, Mother-daughter, Sibling relationships, First-loves, Family deaths.
Teaching a Stone to Talk by Annie Dillard
So much more than nature writing, Annie Dillard transforms her precise observations into a meditation on life’s meaning in precise poetic prose.
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Okay, so I picked this one up from the local book box with the sudden strange notion that I perhaps I should read classics, that reading classics might round out my heavily scientific post-secondary education and shed some light onto the meaning and logic of life. These “big” questions plagued me more and more, as I gained space from the shock of my diagnosis and moved into the mental phase of recovery.
I worked through this book one page at a time, drifting off to sleep after only one or two paragraphs every night. It took me the entire summer to read. I jokingly called it my put-me-to sleep book. Aside from a few slightly inspiring passages about the meaning of art, I can’t remember what happened or what was significant about this wordy novel. If anyone would care to enlighten me, I have an open mind.
All The World Drowning by Ben Preston
In the form of a playful page-turning novel, this book explores the razor sharp edge between divine inspiration and insanity, with humor, absurdity, and an underlying seriousness of truth. The storyline is unusual, at times surprising, but the lucidness of the characters hooked me. The characters continue to linger in my mind even nine months after I turned the last page. Can you know God, have visions, and be completely sane? How does this spiritual knowledge fit into secular life, and what role do mind-altering drugs play in this dance? The book opened my apeture for how I view mental illness, ever present in Santa Cruz.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
A delicious, satisfying romantic modern day classic. What more can I say? I am sure a lot of you saw the movie, which was almost as good.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Rereading The Crucible (I read this play in high school) restored my faith in classics, and marked a new effort to dive back into the classic literary world for some kind of message. Although we are no longer intimidated by witchcraft, the age-old problem of people turning on one another, pointing fingers, and joining the bandwagon of name-calling in the name of power or fear is unfortunately an all too familiar theme. Just look what is happening in American politics today.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
I encountered this classic next to The Crucible in the same “little library,” most likely an end-of-the-semester purge for a local high school English student. The margins of the first couple of chapters of this paperback were filled with the profuse and undiscriminating notes of an eager young reader. However, after a few chapters, the pages were bare. Perhaps I should have taken the hint, but I kept reading.
I found the narcissistic character of Dorian Gray completely unappealing, which I suppose was the point. I think I kept reading to find out if Dorian Gray would ever redeem himself, to see if he ever became whole and human. In my opinion, he never did, and I was frustrated and unsatisfied with the whole experience of reading this book. However, I must admit, I think I will always remember the image of Dorian Gray’s aging portrait, racked in misery and age, carrying all the wrath and contempt of humanity in a dark attic.
Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott
I think I love reading Anne Lamott in equal parts because of her literary bravery and her reverence for the magical spaces in Marin county, for which I am always longing. In this book, she finds humor, beauty and meaning, in the everyday life events. She is never afraid to own-up to the less than desirable human traits of jealousy, laziness, or fear. Her bold humor reminds me that life is always funny. But it is her willingness to blend the more nebulous subjects of faith, grace, and God into the everyday fold of story-telling, to enter into the world of the spirit without proper credentials, that moves me every time. My writing humbly leans toward her example, as I feel called to find the humor and the meaning in the world around me.
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
From the same Japanese author as the novel described above, this non-fiction meditation on running and writing is very unique. As a runner (on sabbatical) and writer (in my fantasies), I was very satisfied by his focused collection of running thoughts. As with his novel, Murakami is able to move seamlessly between the dreamworld of the mind and a very carefully described reality. Such a long book just about thoughts about running might be tedious by another author, but Murakami has the special gift of making the mundane peacefully interesting. I kept saying to Mike, “I don’t know why I like reading this book, but I really do.”
Catastrophic Happiness: Finding Joy in Childhood’s Messy Years by Catherine Newman
Not unlike Anne Lamott, Newman searches for the humor and meaning in mothering. Her collection of essays is fast-reading, and her experiences are instantly recognizable. Even though her kids are entirely different than mine, this tribute to the unseen work that mothers do is universal. Mothers with children of all ages will enjoy this read.
The Mischief of the Mistletoe: A Pink Carnation Christmas by Lauren Willig
Something about Christmastime motivates me to read Jane Austen sequels. Nearly a year after I read the last Jane Austen sequel, I picked up this one. A whimsical and entertaining mystery, I whipped through this story in a days, the rain pounding on the roof, my tissue box handy. Going to bed for a few days with a good book was just what I needed to fight my 400th sinus infection of the season. (Okay, I’m exaggerating…)
The Born Frees: Writing with the Girls of Gugulethu, by Kimberly Burge
This book is a true memoir of an American woman who goes to an impoverished township in Cape Town, South Africa, to lead a weekly writing group for teenage girls. In watching the girls unfold and process the reality of their lives through writing, I realized I was doing the same thing. By writing about and sharing my difficult life experiences, I was releasing the experiences and permitting myself to dream beyond cancer. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this uplifting account, showing the power of writing for youth. The book inspired me to work with Cali to write about her experiences and feelings through her treatment and beyond.
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
It feels like sacrilege to even talk about this book objectively. This book is the heart wrenching, true story of a resident brain surgeon who is learning to operate on severe brain cancer patients, when very abruptly he himself is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. In his last months, he wrote this book to describe his experience of suddenly switching from doctor to patient and the reality of facing death in more than a medical way.
The first part of the book is filled with engaging description and moments of brilliance. However, as the cancer metastasizes to his other organs and eventually his brain, the quality and density of his writing fades. The afterward, written by his devoted wife, also a medical doctor, describes his rapid decline and death.
I found myself deeply disappointed, and then extremely ashamed at myself for being disappointed. As a reader and fellow cancer survivor, I wanted him to live. I wanted him to prevail and overcome that darn disease. And if he couldn’t physically overcome, at least I wanted him to arrive at some mental solace, at some peace with death. I wanted this harrowing experience to culminate in some grand epiphany. However, the story just petered-out, which is exactly the hard truth. Real death is not usually a grand culmination. It is not a graduation speech. It is slipping into another world without a satisfying concluding sentence.
Usually, I give books to my friends after I read them, especially hardbacks I purchase at the bookstore at full price. However, I could’t bring myself to recommend this book to anyone, not for lack of quality, but because of a truth I was not ready to face. I buried the book sideways on the top shelf of my living room bookshelf, but it still stares down at me like a pair of eyes. I may have to revisit this book again.
The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan
A friend recommended this book, telling me it reminded her so much of my blog and my story. Strangely, it is by the same author as the book that started this reading adventure. In this memoir, the author and her father simultaneously undergo treatment for different kinds of cancer. In refreshing relief to Kalanithi’s story, both of the cancer patients survive radiantly, which is a helpful kind of story for me right now. However, the story is so much more than a cancer memoir. The characters of Kelly’s family spring to life, and I was drawn into the drama and love of her family as if it were my own. In studying her writing, I realized how processing her cancer experience was like a tool for investigating her own life and drawing out the most important pieces. I have benefited from cancer in the same way; somehow the shifted focus has given me fresh insights I don’t think I would have found any other way.
*
I haven’t figured out why, but writing this ridiculously long book review and re-reading it over and over has given me extreme pleasure over the last two years. The escape I feel when I am reading and writing these reviews is even better then the experience of reading the actual books. It is a phenomena I don’t understand. I kept asking my sister when we were living at the cottage, “Do you think I am really weird? My most satisfying pastime right now is writing reviews of books I read. I think I am reading books just write reviews.“
She said wisely, “If you makes you happy, why are you questioning it?” I guess writing the reviews was kind of a way of marking progress, in a an otherwise timeless period with no footholds.
But now here is a little twist. Here is a possibly forthcoming publication. Do you think you would read it?
When Lightening Strikes Twice: Finding Inspiration Against All Odds by Jenny Lovejoy Bennett
When a self-employed mother of four is unexpectedly diagnosed with leukemia, she is very suddenly ripped out of her life and away from her family to undergo aggressive treatment, requiring isolation and a bone marrow transplant. She chronicles her adventures with both humor and pathos, bringing readers inside her world to experience cancer treatment from her unique perspective. However, her story takes on a bewildering and heart-wrenching twist when, just as she is starting to recover, her seven-year-old daughter is shockingly diagnosed with lymphoma, a similar blood cancer. The author is forced to switch immediately from patient to caregiver, deepening her experience of cancer and challenging her ability to find inspiration against all odds.
Cali was looking forward to many exciting activities that afternoon back at RMH. Lunch was being catered by a local business, and her grandparents were coming to visit! She had plans to show her grandparents the “American Girl” store across the street at the mall and maybe talk them into a Jamba Juice. But most importantly, we had already missed the opening hours of a special “clothing boutique” happening all day on the third floor, just feet from our room. In honor of the upcoming Ronald McDonald House’s annual dinner-dance event, “A Night In Hollywood,” formal attire of all sizes had been donated by local charities, from which house families could choose freely. Cali had her heart set on a sparkly blue dress she had spied through the locked window door the night before, and was hoping to find dress shoes to match.
“Can I go to the boutique by myself, Mom?” Cali pleaded, one foot already out the door. I nodded my head “yes” as I answered the call, stepping out into the hallway so at least it looked like I was watching her, just in case anyone questioned my diligence.
Come Thursday, today, another chemo infusion day, Day 36. Each day since Monday, Cali’s energy had been declining. She was requesting the wheelchair more and more. She had close to a week of chemo drugs all simultaneously beating down her counts. I thought, if I was a doctor, and I saw her blood was already a low 8.1 on Monday, I would want to check her blood on Wednesday before blasting her with more chemo early Thursday morning. Yet no one was requesting labs.
So we spent the day waiting for platelets, waiting for fluids, and finally getting blood. All through the platelets, all through the fluids, Cali was miserable, vomiting and in pain whenever her head was elevated more than about ten degrees. It was a long day of iPad and occasional games of Uno. For lack of anything else to do in that windowless recovery room, I read the better half of The Liars Club, a wonderful, but horrendously dense, book for one sitting. Finally, at five o-clock, when the blood was finally done infusing, Cali got a spark in her eye.
Last Monday, Cali and I arrived promptly for our scheduled 12:00 pm blood draw. Since Cali was in a lot of pain over the weekend stemming from an ng-tube nose irritation, I had called the clinic earlier in the morning to see if she could see a doctor in conjunction with her blood draw.
I am happy to announce that this week, the tides have turned for the better! All of sudden, Cali is eating voraciously, and she is no longer sleepy. She is walking, and her stomach cramps and shin-bone pains have gone as quickly as they came. But there is more to celebrate: miracle of miracles, I can finally smell, which means my seemingly endless head cold is (at least temporarily) in reprieve. AND last night, when I pulled back the hair on my forehead, I discovered a new layer of Jenny-Lovejoy-orange hair growing below my unfamiliar greyish-blond curly mop!
The south facing walls of the RMH kitchen are a long line of appliances with pleasant windows overlooking the backyard. There are five gas-ranges, four sinks, and three dishwashers, strung together by vast stretches of three-foot-deep counter. Drawers below the counters are stuffed with an unorganized consortium of pots and pans, serving spoons, can-openers, and a knife or two if you are lucky.
Okay, I have something to get off my chest.
Luckily, I have recovered to the point where I really only have to cough two or three times a day. I can go hours, whole nights, without a hack. However, as soon as I walk though that Bass Center door, something happens. The mucus lining in my throat increases exponentially. My tonsils burn. My voice box churns out words in a low gravel. My eyes water. But I keep that cough at bay. I will not be discovered.
Jenny and Cali at Stanford 