Mom's Cancer [Hardcover]

Brian Fies (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0810958406 | ISBN-13: 978-0810958401 | Publication Date: March 1, 2006 | Edition: First edition.

Each year, approximately 1.5 million people in the United States and Canada are diagnosed with cancer. This is one family’s story.

Winner of the 2005 Eisner Award in the category of Best Digital Comic for the original Web version, Mom’s Cancer is now available as a graphic novel. An honest, unflinching, and sometimes humorous look at the practical and emotional effect that serious illness can have on patients and their families, Mom’s Cancer is a story of hope—uniquely told in words and illustrations.

Brian Fies is a freelance journalist whose mother was diagnosed with lung cancer. As he and his two sisters struggled with the effects of her illness and her ongoing recovery from treatment, Brian processed the experience in his journal, which took the form of words and pictures.

The story that came to be known as “Mom’s Cancer” first gained notice on the internet. It was posted anonymously, with the intention of sharing information and insights gained from his family’s experience. Thanks to the words and illustrations of Brian Fies, readers have already responded that they were surprised and gratified to realize that they weren’t alone. Abrams Image is proud to bring this story to a whole new audience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

D on't let the title put you off: collecting the Eisner Award–winning Web comic of the same name, this story is more about how a life-altering event affects an entire family than another Lifetime disease-of-the-week story. When freelance writer Fies finds out his mother has both lung cancer and a brain tumor, her attempts to fight the disease—including rounds of radiation and chemotherapy—pull her entire family into the struggle. Fies is gentle but honest in telling his story. He refrains from painting his mother as a saint, depicting her instead as someone getting through a horrible situation by refusing to acknowledge just how bad it is. Nor does he shy away from the more complicated emotions his mother's health generates, including a sometimes heated rivalry with his two sisters (knowledgeable "Nurse Sis" and empathetic "Kid Sis"). Fies is most compelling when he finds insight in small details unique to his mother's experience, such as the strength she draws from a leather purse her father made while confined in a tuberculosis sanitarium. The clean, simple comic-strip quality of Fies's art fits the story perfectly, highlighting the gravity of the situation while cutting away undue sentimentality. Mom's Cancer is a quiet, courageous account of one family's response to a universal situation. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In a suave comic-strip style rather like those of Gary Trudeau (Doonesbury) and Berke Breathed (Bloom County), Fies traces the events of his mother's illness primarily from the perspective of her three children, including "nurse sis" and "kid sis" (adult but the youngest) as well as himself. After a "mini stroke," his mother was diagnosed with lung cancer that had metastasized to the brain. A vital and positive woman who had been a model with hopes of Hollywood, she opted to fight the disease whole hog. Fies and his sisters pitched in to help her during the ensuing debilitation, seeing her through to tentative remission and an -eleventh-hour (as it happened) move to Hollywood with kid sis. Depicting a family dependably if warily dealing, not without anger and feelings of inadequacy, with each crisis and change that cancer brings, Fies' book may be one of the most well balanced contributions to the literature of coping with cancer. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Abrams; First edition. edition (March 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810958406
• ISBN-13: 978-0810958401
• Product Dimensions: 7.3 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,383,322 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If someone in your family has cancer...., April 18, 2006

By 

Eva C. Whitley (Westminster, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mom's Cancer (Hardcover)

It's less about Mom than her three adult children (pseudonymously portrayed here as the narrator, Nurse Sis, and Kid Sis) and how they cope with the news and subsequent treatment for Mom. Vivid visual metaphors (the Operation Game, superheroes, the "tightrope" of treatment) combine with heartfelt writing (smokers won't be pleased with how they're portrayed) for an unforgettable portrait of a family in crisis. It has a simple, clean graphic style that will appeal to readers who are not regular readers of graphic novels.

If your mother smokes, this, and and "the patch" would make an excellent present.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Close to home, May 4, 2006

By 

Joe Smith (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mom's Cancer (Hardcover)

My family shared many of the experiences of the author's family during my mother's cancer. It's compelling, touching and hopeful.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's Sometimes Hard To Tell The Poisons From The Cures, Because Sometimes They Are The Same Things, October 14, 2007

By 

One More Option (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mom's Cancer (Hardcover)

"What to do when pain rips through our brains like a tornado. We need the truth." - Barbara, the author's mother's, wrote that thought after reading this book.

This is an excellent graphic novel about one family's experience with Stage 4 Large-Cell Carcinoma (a.k.a. - Cancer).

A story is often only as good as the heart of the person telling it. If that sentiment is true, it explains in large part why this story is so good. If you can make a story about dealing with your mother's terminal cancer funny and life-affirming, you are creating a pretty intelligent and well-crafted piece of writing.

His artwork is consistently excellent, never distracting, and peaceful in the midst of life-threatening circumstances. The visuals are coordinated with the words fluidly, immediately conveying the ideas and emotions with very few ambiguities. This graphic novel won an Eisner Award in it's online format.

Brian Fies tells us in the preface, "Although I distrust stories with lessons, here is one: No one will care more about your life than you do, and no one is better qualified to chart its course than you are. You are the expert."

As you might expect, like all real stories, this one does not end with everyone living happily ever after. But fortunately, the characters do re-prioritize and choose to change the remaining time in their lives to live as happily as they can until there is no after.

As the preface accurately creates the expectation "Mom's Cancer is an honest, earnest effort to turn something bad into something good." I admire and encourage that human artistic drive, and Brian Fies is successful in achieving that goal and many other beautiful artistic goals.