Rewriting Illness

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"With wisdom, wit, and novelistic storytelling, Elizabeth Benedict revisits life as a cancer patient and committed hypochondriac. When she discovers multiplying lumps in her armpit, she confronts her terror, interspersed with self-mocking levity, as she indulges in "natural remedies," among them chanting Tibetan mantras, drinking shots of wheat grass juice, and eating chocolate babka. She tracks the progression of her illness from muddled diagnosis to debilitating treatment, gathering sustenance from literature, her family, and an assortment of urbane, ironic friends, including her fearless "cancer guru." In brief chapters with startling titles--"Was it the Krazy Glue?" and "Not Everything Scares the S*** Out of Me"--Benedict poses existential questions: Is there a cancer personality? Can trauma be passed on generationally? Can cancer discourse be stripped of its warlike metaphors? How do doctors' own fears influence their comments to patients? Is there a gendered response to illness? Why isn't illness one of literature's great subjects? Would being a mother have changed her life as a writer and hypochondriac? Post diagnosis, Benedict asks: Which fear is worse--the fear of knowing or the reality of knowing?" -- Inside front cover