Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting [Hardcover]

Meredith Norton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 12, 2008

A hilarious and wickedly irreverent look at life with cancer

Lopsided is not your ordinary cancer memoir. Meredith Norton chronicles every step of her experience, starting with her bizarre symptoms while living in Paris to moving back home to California and living with her compulsive parents and their five television sets. Irreverent and incredibly funny, Norton rails against self-pity and victimhood and rants about the innumerable copies of Lance Armstrong’s cancer survival book pressed on her by well-meaning family and friends.

Alongside the harrowing portrait of her treatments, Norton offers equally amusing memories from her offbeat life. We see her childhood time during a somewhat racist ski trip, a family reunion at a Florida alligator farm, and her life in a tree house with a neighbor, who, despite being vegan, hates mice enough to taxidermy them into miniature versions of racecar drivers, Jesus, a UPS delivery man, and Sally Jesse Raphael.

Like David Sedaris and Augusten Burroughs, Norton’s razor-sharp wit is at once riotous and excruciating. Lopsided is the remarkable debut of a masterful humorist.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Norton was in her midthirties, living in Paris with her French husband and toddler and suffering odd symptoms that French doctors dismissed. Visiting her parents in California, her lopsided breasts’ appearance caused her usually underreacting mother to insist she see a doctor. Within hours, Norton had seen the ob-gyn, two surgeons, “gotten a skin biopsy, had an ultrasound and mammogram, been scheduled for a stereotactic needle biopsy, and been wished a nice weekend.” Diagnosed with a virulent cancer and given a 40 percent chance of survival, she managed to maintain a breezy wit while surviving chemotherapy and attendant baldness, double mastectomy, radiation treatments, and the ministrations of her African American family, with its five blaring TV sets and discussion of everything except sex, money, and feelings. Such observations as, about her son, “his first trip to the beach might be my last” and about her ovaries’ death from chemo provoking “not the upset where you sniffle and cry, but the ghetto-style upset where you burn down someone’s check-cashing business” crackle with heartfelt intensity and irreverence. --Whitney Scott

Review

“…a truly elegant memoir…Norton is terrific at narrating the physical slapstick of battling this disease. But She’s even better on the arrogance and pretense the cancer reveals…she’s fresh and adorable, and you hope she sticks round to produce at least another dozen surly, lovely books.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine

“By including touches of wit and sarcasm, Norton strikes a successful balance between light and heavy, keeping her audience consistently engaged.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“If you seek to be moved — to laughter, that is — look no further than newbie Meredith Norton’s memoir, Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting. Her victimless approach doesn’t sugarcoat the experience but rather brings to light hilarious universals (e.g., constant Lance Armstrong mentions from friends and family).”
—Daily Candy

“Lopsided is fantastic. I read it in one sitting, and it completely swallowed me up. For one entire day, a girl I don’t know and never met became my best friend, and I have not been able to stop thinking about her since. LOPSIDED is powerful, funny, courageous, and moving, but most of all, it is human.”
—Laurie Notaro, author of The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club

“...wise, humorous memoir...Her disarming frankness renders the book less a cancer survival guide and more a lovably unfiltered e-mail from a hilarious friend. There has not been a funnier, more honest cancer account in recent memory.”
—People

“I hope to encounter this clear, incisive, highly amusing voice again. Soon.”
—Orlando Sentinel

“Norton is one plucky dame, and she displays a sharp eye for the human condition...[she]calls herself a storyteller, and the tale she has crafted from a life-altering event is indeed hard to put down”
—Kirkus Reviews

“[Lopsided] crackle[s] with heartfelt intensity and irreverence.”
—Booklist

“Her tone may be facetious, her language colorful, and her distractions gritty (readers will gasp at the taxidermy activities of a former neighbor), but her view of cancer (funny and irreverent) and her place in the world (she found herself “waiting for a miracle. Not a miracle to save my life, but the miracle to make something of it”) will make readers stand up and cheer. Highly recommended…”
—Library Journal

“Meredith Norton gives marvelous new meaning to the phrase ‘a sick sense of humor.’ And her lippy, lovable, sharp-shooting story will find your heartstrings by way of your funny bone. This isn’t Chicken Soup for the soul; it’s Tabasco. Fans of David Sedaris should fall to their knees and worship this book. LOPSIDED is, hands down, the best new memoir that I’ve read in ages.”
— Koren Zailckas, author of Smashed

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (June 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670019283
• ISBN-13: 978-0670019281
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,184,453 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Grace When Facing A Death Sentence, July 8, 2008

By 

Barbara Mcclure - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting (Hardcover)

Meredith Norton's memoir is unexpectedly funny about a very serious subject. I found myself reading the novel,not wanting to put it down, eager to find out how she brings the story to an end. The comparison to Sedaris is appropriate as Meredith maintains the humor throughout yet pauses at times to allow us to understand the severity of cancer she faced. Memoirs are supposed to be self-reflections of personal experience, not self-help books that offer advice to others who may be suffering from the same disease; I disagree with the reviewer who suggests caution. Meredith brings us into her world and experiences, so we understand her confusion, frustration, anger, and humor. A great read from a woman who has a wonderful spirit and drive to survive against all odds. And she can write.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Priceless. Funny as hell. Fascinating. WOW., July 7, 2008

By 

Mrs. Mookie "Mrs Mookie" (Berkeley, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting (Hardcover)

I picked up this book even though I had never heard of it because a) I'm interested in memoir and b) my sister-in-law is battling cancer. I never expected to be this enthralled. I simply could not put it down. Several times I found myself sneaking away from work just to read another page or two. I was riveted.

You can't help but fall in love with Meredith, this quirky character who doesn't take herself seriously and seems like just the kind of person I'd love (or be) in real life. Her battles are real but her wit is what moved me. I laughed out loud several times. I know, how is cancer funny? But you just have to read it for yourself. Really. You have to!

Don't miss this great read!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Far too few by women of color, July 4, 2008

By 

NYC Mom (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lopsided: How Having Breast Cancer Can Be Really Distracting (Hardcover)

I've read a lot of the breast cancer literature for the woman diagnosed since I was diagnosed 8 years ago - doing fine, thanks. This is the first one I think I've seen by a woman of color. A good combo read with Cancer Vixen.