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For most of us, receiving a cancer diagnosis can sound like a death sentence. It’s about suddenly coming to terms with one’s mortality—accepting that our time on this planet is limited and may end at any instant.
Having lost my father to pancreatic cancer last year, and with my mother presently undergoing chemotherapy for a rare Mullerian cancer, I turned to the cancer narratives written by other people to make sense of the unfortunate reality.
Cancer memoirs reckon with the promises and pitfalls of the healthcare system—expensive drugs, clinical trials, endless rounds of chemo and radiation, surgeries that may or may not save one’s life, and grappling with medical debt. They guide us on when to keep fighting and when to give up, and what makes life truly meaningful and worth living.
These books, written by all sorts of people—some who’ve survived and some who didn’t—can be heartbreaking to read, filled with grief, trauma, and deeply terrifying experiences, but they also teach us to be strong, hopeful, and resilient in the face of impossible odds.
Above all, they remind patients, caregivers, and anyone affected by this deadly disease that they are not alone in their pain.
The Cancer Journals
I’ve always turned to Audre Lorde’s poetry and essays for comfort, reassurance and wisdom, whether it’s about self-love or decolonizing the mind. The feminist activist was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1978, and six years later, it had metastasized to the liver; she died another eight years later of the disease.
Her memoir The Cancer Journals offers a personal and unflinching account of living with breast cancer and what it means for her femininity and how she came to terms with the unfamiliar changes in the body.
It also enjoins women to advocate better for themselves, to understand treatment protocols, and to reckon with the societal implications of choosing (or not) to wear a breast prosthesis after a radical mastectomy.
When Breath Becomes Air
Paul Kalanithi was a successful neurosurgeon, concerned with saving countless lives, till he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer in his mid-30s. Suddenly, from being the doctor who cured patients, he became a terminal patient himself.
As a doctor, he was objectively aware of the treatment protocols and grim survival odds, yet that knowledge wasn’t of much help as a patient, grappling with pain, uncertainty, and impending death.
Published about ten months after his death, When Breath Becomes Air is a remarkably powerful, life-affirming book that will make you ugly cry a lot.
Crying in H Mart
Michelle Zauner is the rockstar behind the indie pop sensation Japanese Breakfast; she’s also a foodie, a writer, and a Korean-American who lost her mother to pancreatic cancer.
Crying in H Mart is her memoir, where she dives into her thorny relationship with her mother, its ups and downs, and explores her Korean heritage through food and family traditions.
Alongside delectable descriptions of home-cooked meals, the memoir explores Zauner’s childhood, college years, her experiences as a cancer caregiver, and how music, language, and family history helped her endure. Overall, a rather radiant and exquisite read.
Between Two Kingdoms
What happens when the deadly cancer strikes right when you’re starting to live your life? That’s the fate that befell Suleika Jaouad, who was diagnosed with leukemia before she turned 23 and endured three and a half years of chemo, among other travails.
It’s a profoundly moving story of what happens when life suddenly changes overnight and how strange and difficult it is to rebuild one’s life after being medically “cured.”
It’s a gorgeously written story of survival and resilience, with an engaging account of a 100-day solo road trip making up the latter section of the book.
Stitches
David Small’s beautiful and visceral graphic memoir—about a teenage child’s fight with cancer—unfolds like a Gothic coming-of-age film.
It doesn’t shy away from depicting the violence and horrors of treatment—and how, from a child’s perspective, the entire ordeal can appear as an endless nightmare.
Melancholic and creepy, Stitches explores dysfunctional parenthood, the pitfalls of 1950s medicine, and how one young, sickly child eventually escapes it all.
The Emperor of All Maladies
Finally, while The Emperor of All Maladies isn’t a memoir per se, Siddhartha Mukherjee’s meticulously researched, lucid biography of cancer also won a Pulitzer.
It explores the historical origins of cancer, the development of new surgical techniques, and the advent of chemotherapy drugs and palliative medicine.
If you or a loved one or someone you know has been affected by cancer, The Emperor of All Maladies is the first go-to book that might help you make sense of this deadly disease.
Featured image: Canva
