Songs from a Lead-Lined Room: Notes--High and Low--from My Journey through Breast Cancer and Radiation [Paperback]

Suzanne Strempek Shea (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2003

Songs from a Lead-Lined Room is a unique and remarkable book rooted in truth and raw experience, and the first memoir to focus on the personal experience of radiation treatment. As with Shea's best-selling fiction, her sharp and insightful wit and her reporter's eye for the most telling and sometimes quirky details inform every page. She shares what she learns about the process of her treatment, her bouts of despair, indignity, and fear, as well as the faux pas, the innocent blunders, and the compassion and caring of her family, friends, and fellow patients

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Novelist and former journalist Shea (Selling the Lite of Heaven) says that while she was never much of a diarist, she found writing about her experience with radiation therapy for breast cancer therapeutic. In order to help other women "who'd been in [her] boots," the author decided to publish her account of the six and a half weeks she spent going to a "lead-lined room." Her straightforward memoir reveals exactly what her radiation treatment involved: the drive to the hospital, the overly air-conditioned waiting room, her favorite technician, the hard little dish she rested her head in when she lay down in the machine, and the music she listened to through headphones to take her away from it all. She also shares her shock and anger at being diagnosed when she was a healthy 41-year-old woman who "liked [her life] the way it was" and her unwillingness to embrace the positive attitude many people demand cancer patients adopt. Though she connects with a handful of people on her own terms, Shea emphasizes her need for solitude. One person she feels akin to is Molly Bish, a teenager from her area who disappeared around the time of Shea's diagnosis; Shea weaves news of the search for Molly into her own story because she feels she has "vanished in a way as well." Yet despite Shea's candor and often poetic writing style, her memoir lacks focus and can leave the reader feeling bogged down in minor details. As Shea slogs through treatment, readers are given yet another comprehensive description of a waiting room. Nevertheless, the book is an important addition to a small but growing number of realistic cancer memoirs.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Shea starts with a song of herself: at 41, she had never smoked, walked daily in all weather, hadn't eaten meat in a decade, and drank very little. She attended church, recycled, gave to charities, and had regular mammograms. In short, she was in the best shape, physically, she ever had been. So she thought. Then, a diagnosis of breast cancer. Because of milk, she wonders, or high-tension wires, or pesticides? What with early detection, her prognosis is good. She gives us her flashback-filled diary, the account of a month-and-a-half of postlumpectomy radiation treatments administered in a lead-lined room, which she initially meant to burn after sharing only with intimates. With no lymph nodes invaded, no chemotherapy was required. Still, though painless, the weeks of daily 10-minute procedures, five days a week, brought on self-isolation and fatigue in a limbo-like state, despite her relatively easy regular life as a stay-at-home writer. Shea's journey to understanding and appreciating her overall good fortune is a self-revelation that others affected by breast cancer will value. Whitney Scott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (April 15, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080707215X
• ISBN-13: 978-0807072158
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #744,751 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally, an honest voice, April 15, 2003

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Songs from a Lead-Lined Room (Hardcover)

When cancer hits you and yours, you read a lot of things in order to deal with the alien world you've been thrown into. The books are helpful, but always there is that undercurrent of, it's not so bad, you should be glad it's not worse, you should be grateful to do anything to stay alive, you should be ok with this in some way and even find life-affirming value in having cancer. Well in my experience it's not like that. Doing what you have to do in order to save your life in no way diminishes the problems, pain, and grief that you have to face. This book talks about that in a real way, and it's the only one I've read that does. It's ok to want your old life back, and it's incredibly important that you get validation for everything that you are going through. It really is that bad and you deserve to know that other people know that. This book will provide you with another voice that knows what you and yours are going through and doesn't try to minimize it. It was such a refreshing and helpful change from most books about breast cancer that I read it in one sitting on the day it came, and would recommend it to anyone that would like to hear about the experience of another real person.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Walk Through The Deepest Valley, June 23, 2003

By 

Morgan Broman (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Songs from a Lead-Lined Room (Hardcover)

Death and illness are tough subjects for any writer. A diary of of a writer's own illness runs the danger of either being too dark or too brave in the face of death. Suzanne Strempek Shea's account of her breast cancer treatment is neither. Shea marches cleanly down her own path, balancing her own anger and needs with the world around her. I read this book nearly a year ago, yet key passages remain with me still. Although Shea covers the life-altering details of cancer treatment, this book is more of a journal of the emotional trama caused by the disease. This is not the book for those looking for bright sunshine in the face of darkness, yet the account is very often funny. It is a real life take on how one person finds a way to deal with the most frightening thing that can be thrown at a successful person in the prime of life. Shea does her best writing when she speaks of the effect her illness is having on family and friends. Writing about music is extremely difficult, but Shea is also able to convey the healing power of music as she struggles through radiation treatment. Her way through the valley is unique and I think this book can be a useful guide for those facing adversity. Many readers seek to avoid the sadness of this type of illness account, but "Songs from a Lead-Lined Room" is one to be embraced.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an important book, October 30, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Songs from a Lead-Lined Room (Hardcover)

This book is as much for families of those with cancer as it is for those with cancer.
First read an excerpt in Yankee Magazine in the spring. "Songs" delivers on that promise.
Despite the subject matter, the book is funnier than you would think.