For anyone facing cancer themselves or the diagnosis of someone close to them, finding a community to lean on can be life changing. Friends, family and support groups can all help fill this need, but there’s another way, as well. Cancer memoirs, written by those who have been on the journey, can illuminate your own in unexpected, and often moving, ways. Whether you’re looking for someone to tell you the cold hard facts, or read a story to lift your spirits, it’s out there.
Here 6 remarkable cancer memoirs, each different in tone and story, and each uniquely able to teach, comfort and guide.
‘Not One of These Poems Is About You’: Teva Harrison
In this posthumous book of essays, Teva Harrison shares her metastatic breast cancer journey. A follow up to Harrison’s “In-Between Days: A Memoir About Living with Cancer,” it dives deep into what it means to have cancer, the impact it has on her life, and how the disease has progressed. A look at her femininity, health and the great love of her life, it’s an honest and raw read.
‘TOUGH: Women Who Survived Cancer’
This cumulative work from 37 women who survived a variety of cancers shines a light on so many remarkable stories. Edited by cancer survivor Marquina Iliev-Piselli, “TOUGH: Women Who Survived Cancer” brings the reader along as these women follow creative pursuits from stand-up comedy to air guitar.
‘Memoir of a Debulked Woman: Enduring Ovarian Cancer’: Susan Gubar
In 2008, Susan Gubar’s life was turned upside down when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Her memoir dives into the aftereffects and coping with what she describes as her body’s betrayal. She leans on her husband, children and friends while seeking a community through books and testimonies of those who had also faced cancer. In writing this book, she helps others find the community and support that is so critically needed while facing a cancer diagnosis.
“The Middle Place”: Kelly Corrigan
When Kelly Corrigan was 36, she had a happy marriage, two great kids and a weekly newspaper column. But when she discovered a lump in her breast just as her father discovers he has late-stage cancer, she finds herself in what she calls the Middle Place, “that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap.”
“Don’t Stop Believin'”: Olivia Newton-John
Olivia Newton-John, who has stage 4 breast cancer — her third bout with the disease – and who says she recently received encouraging results from her last MRI, has been incredibly open and uplifting throughout her journey. "I've adjusted to living with cancer, which I'm very lucky to say I'm able to do," Newton-John told SurvivorNet in a previous conversation. Her memoir gives fans and supporters the story of her life, details of her cancer journey, and so much more.
‘The Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying’: Nina Riggs
John Duberstein lost his wife, writer Nina Riggs, to metastatic triple negative breast cancer. “She wanted to embrace the existence that she had, even before she knew she was going to die imminently. I did not want to talk about what was going to happen with me after Nina died. Nina is the one that really brought it up, she brought it up a number of times. She wanted to make sure that I knew that it was OK,” he told SurvivorNet in a previous conversation. Her book, The Bright Hour,” tells the story of their relationship and her outlook while staring down the end.
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