Sickbook

On Sunday, the New York Times reviewed three cancer memoirs, none of which, at least by critic Dana Jenning’s assessment,  did the emotional heavy lifting that a grief memoir should do. I’m particularly intrigued by If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman, as well as her tart response to the review over at Gawker.

From what I read, I was struck by the brutal honesty and often contradictory messages we receive when dealing with the dying. From Suzy:

“I was forced to lay fallow. I took off the trappings of contemporary life — vanity, ambition, pretense — and entered into a sort of parallel time where I was compelled to do things the Bible envisions. Be needy. Be a stranger. Be uplifted by those around me. Be reunited with the ones I love.”

Going into the realm of terminal illness – and the otherworldly sense it brings  – feels antithetical to our noisy digital age. Having lost my own father to cancer, I couldn’t help but wonder about Rosman’s motivations for writing this book: perhaps there is a growing need to explain, to confess, to make clear, precisely how death alters life in a way that feels honest for our time. I’ll let you know what I think of the book.