Beauty and the Breast: A Tale of Breast Cancer, Love, and Friendship - Softcover

"Short, easily digestible chapters. [Gerber] also includes clear, black-and-white close-ups of her affected breast during various stages of treatment, among other images.... The featured photographs of the author make this one stand out among the pack." -Library Journal http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2016/08/books/nonfic/sci-tech/fighting-for-the-future-seven-titles-for-october-breast-cancer-awareness-month/ "An intimate, touching, moving portrait of the self in peril and in pain, written with characteristic intelligence and lucidity by Merrill Joan Gerber." -Joyce Carol Oates, author of Soul at the White Heat and Winner of the National Humanities Award "I've read a lot of breast cancer books, but [Merrill Joan Gerber's] is so fresh, so endearing, there's nothing else like it." -Judy Blume, author of Are you There, God? It's Me, Margaret, and In the Unlikely Event "Horror, humor, humaneness, fear, fatigue, love, honesty, bravery, and so much more, including even charm-all movingly mingled." -Cynthia Ozick, author of Critics, Monsters, Fanatics, and other Literary Essays "Richly provocative reading. And in the hands of a gifted and insightful writer with a penchant for the humorously quotidian, those negotiations are at once profound and entirely accessible." -Lynn Stegner, author of For All the Obvious Reasons "Merrill Joan Gerber is one of the finest writers of our time. There is no way to stop reading this very moving, compelling, sad but affirmative memoir. Whatever she touches, she illuminates." -David Evanier, author of Woody: The Biography

When Merrill Joan Gerber was diagnosed breast cancer, she set out on a journey familiar to too many women. It began with denial that her precious breasts, those shining birthrights that appear in adolescence and promise beauty, sex and the love of men, could become the agents of terror and even death. What followed was a parade of doctors and their treatments, of surgery, the debilitating side effects of chemotherapy, and the dangerous but life-saving beams of radiation to her breast. She found new friends in her cancer support group but lost three to the disease. Merrill recorded intimate conversations with her husband and daughters, took photographs of her breast in various stages of treatment, and also of the machinery that dispensed the treatments.

Merrill faced the complicated day-to-day topics—where do I get a wig, what can I eat, how will I sleep? She found a new appreciation for the blessings in her life, her beloved husband, their daughters, and their daughters’ children. As she recalled her parents’ illnesses, her childhood in Brooklyn, and her complicated relationship with her own breasts, she reflected on long-held notions of fear and death.

Merrill Joan Gerber is the author of thirty books and many short stories. She is the winner of an O. Henry Prize and the Ribalow Award from Hadassah magazine. In Beauty and the Breast, she bares her soul and her breasts as she navigates the terrors of cancer and learns with courage and gratitude what it means to be a survivor.

Many have reported on the cancer wars, but Merrill’s memoir delivers a special contribution of humor, passion, candor, real-life photos, and a poetic gift to the reader.