Memoir Of A Debulked Woman Enduring Ovarian Cancer

A 2012 New York Times Book Review Notable Book "Staggering, searing…Ms. Gubar deserves the highest admiration for her bravery and honesty." —New York Times Diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2008, Susan Gubar underwent radical debulking surgery, an attempt to excise the cancer by removing part or all of many organs in the lower abdomen. Her memoir mines the deepest levels of anguish and devotion as she struggles to come to terms with her body’s betrayal and the frightful protocols of contemporary medicine. She finds solace in the abiding love of her husband, children, and friends while she searches for understanding in works of literature, visual art, and the testimonies of others who suffer with various forms of cancer. Ovarian cancer remains an incurable disease for most of those diagnosed, even those lucky enough to find caring and skilled physicians. Memoir of a Debulked Woman is both a polemic against the ineffectual and injurious medical responses to which thousands of women are subjected and a meditation on the gifts of companionship, art, and literature that sustain people in need.

In this moving memoir, a renowned feminist scholar explores the physical and psychological ordeal of living with ovarian cancer.

“Winning [and] intelligent. . . . [An] impressive, often heartening addition to the literature of aging.” — Heller McAlpin, Wall Street Journal In this “unique blend of memoir and literary commentary” (Bookpage), acclaimed author and literary scholar Susan Gubar contemplates the beauty and strength of enduring love—both for her husband and for the literature that has shaped her life. Throughout the complications of devoted caregiving, her own ongoing cancer treatments, and a stressful move to a more manageable apartment, Gubar proves that love and desire have no expiration date—on the page or in life. Late-Life Love offers a resounding retort to ageist stereotypes, appraises the obstacles unique to senior couples, and celebrates second chances.

A brilliant, clear-eyed consideration of the visual representation of violence in our culture--its ubiquity, meanings, and effects. Considered one of the greatest critics of her generation, Susan Sontag followed up her monumental On Photography with an extended study of human violence, reflecting on a question first posed by Virginia Woolf in Three Guineas: How in your opinion are we to prevent war? "For a long time some people believed that if the horror could be made vivid enough, most people would finally take in the outrageousness, the insanity of war." One of the distinguishing features of modern life is that it supplies countless opportunities for regarding (at a distance, through the medium of photography) horrors taking place throughout the world. But are viewers inured—or incited—to violence by the depiction of cruelty? Is the viewer’s perception of reality eroded by the daily barrage of such images? What does it mean to care about the sufferings of others far away? First published more than twenty years after her now classic book On Photography, which changed how we understand the very condition of being modern, Regarding the Pain of Others challenges our thinking not only about the uses and means of images, but about how war itself is waged (and understood) in our time, the limits of sympathy, and the obligations of conscience.

An important addition to the literature of cancer by an award-winning scholar and memoirist. Elaborating upon her “Living with Cancer” column in the New York Times, Susan Gubar helps patients, caregivers, and the specialists who seek to serve them. In a book both enlightening and practical, she describes how the activities of reading and writing can right some of cancer’s wrongs. To stimulate the writing process, she proposes specific exercises, prompts, and models. In discussions of the diary of Fanny Burney, the stories of Leo Tolstoy and Alice Munro, numerous memoirs, novels, paintings, photographs, and blogs, Gubar shows how readers can learn from art that deepens our comprehension of what it means to live or die with the disease. From a writer whose own memoir, Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer, was described by the New York Times Book Review as “moving and instructive…and incredibly brave,” this volume opens a path to healing.

Fresh from the Second City troupe in Toronto, Gilda Radner created such memorable characters as Emily Litella and Roseanne Roseannadanna as a member of the original cast of Saturday Night Live. The wife of Gene Wilder, Gilda was plagued by persistent health problems and two miscarriages, and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986. Brave, funny, and painfully honest, the twentieth-anniversary edition of It's Always Something is the story of Gilda's journey while living with cancer and her determination to continue laughing. "Cancer," she said, "is about the most unfunny thing in the world." But Gilda's gutsy and unique sense of humor never left her as she describes two years of cancer treatment -- surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation treatment, as well as the high and low points of her own career. Told as only Gilda could tell it, and newly revised to include a resource guide for those living with cancer, It's Always Something is the inspiring story of a courageous, funny woman determined to enjoy life no matter the circumstances.

Based on his columns in Vanity Fair that chronicled his year-and-a-half battle with esophageal cancer, Mortality is Christopher Hitchens at his most honest and reflective . Thoughtfully meditating on the harrowing effects of illness and treatment on the body, and on the impermanence and acceptance of a life ending, Mortality is Hitchens' magnum opus, and in true Hitchens form, he has the last word.

"A darn good read.” —Christiane Northrup, M.D., ob/gyn physician and New York Times bestselling author A feminist breast cancer memoir of medical trauma, love, and how she found the strength to listen to her body. As a young, queer woman, Catherine Guthrie had worked hard to feel at home in her body. However, after years writing about women’s health and breast cancer, Guthrie is thrust into the role of the patient after a devastating diagnosis at age thirty-eight. At least, she thinks, I know what I'm up against. She was wrong. In one horrifying moment after another, everything that could go wrong does—the surgeon gives her a double mastectomy but misses the cancerous lump, one of the most effective drug treatments fails, and a doctor's error may have unleashed millions of breast cancer cells into her body. Flat is Guthrie’s story of how two bouts of breast cancer shook her faith in her body, her relationship, and medicine. Along the way, she challenges the view that breasts are essential to femininity and paramount to a woman’s happiness. Ultimately, she traces an intimate portrayal of how cancer reshapes her relationship with Mary, her partner, revealing—in the midst of crisis—a love story. Filled with candor, vulnerability, and resilience, Guthrie upends the “pink ribbon” narrative and offers a unique perspective on womanhood, what it means to be “whole,” and the importance of women advocating for their desires. Flat is a story about how she found the strength to forge an unconventional path—one of listening to her body—that she’d been on all along.