Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors [Paperback]

Evan Handler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 1997

From the moment a doctor who looks like Richard Nixon informs him he has leukemia, Evan Handler sweeps us into the experience of his illness--and recovery--spinning a delicate balance of humor and wisdom, anger and hope, that redefines the literature on facing adversity. Evan Handler has played leading roles in seven broadway productions. This book is based on his hit off-Broadway play, which THE NEW YORK TIMES called "laceratingly funny and self-revealing.".

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While some adaptations from theater go limp as prose, Handler has expanded his off-Broadway play about surviving leukemia into a captivating memoir. Laced with anger, punctuated by humor and fueled by his indomitable will to survive, Handler's story is entertaining, harrowing and ennobling. A successful actor, at 24 he was forced to face his mortality. He provides gimlet-eyed portraits of an often uncaring (yet sometimes deeply loving) medical world and the ugly procedures he must undergo. To survive, Handler learned "opportunistic optimism," drawing on inspirational literature, even consulting a psychic, all the while aided by his girlfriend, Jackie. He's forced to confront his family's craziness and his own emotional traumas. He can find humor in retelling his predicament?as in describing hospital sex?while his accounts of the mental bargains he and other patients make suggest a reckoning with ultimates. Readers will be appalled at instances of the often substandard medical treatment he receives and spellbound by his attempts to monitor his recovery. Considering himself "one of the very luckiest of the unluckiest people," Handler speaks with a fresh voice that is entirely riveting. Author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Until he was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 24, Handler was a talented actor with a promising Broadway career and all the time in the world. But the bleak prognosis transformed time into "a concrete entity" not to be wasted. Resigning his understudy's role in Neil Simon's Biloxi Blues, Handler checked himself into New York's Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, embarking on a five-year battle to get a second chance at life and time. Adapted from his successful off-Broadway one-man play, Time on Fire recounts with grim humor Handler's hellish journey through the land of the sick: insensitive doctors; experimental chemotherapies sometimes worse than the illness; awkward sex with his girlfriend in a hospital bathroom; remission, relapse, remission. Self-absorbed (with the actor's desire to be at the center of attention), Handler does not always come across as an admirable figure; he was hard on his supportive parents and girlfriend. "I must have been sheer hell to be around," he admits. "But I know it saved my life on several occasions." His honesty and tenacity, however, enable readers to cheer his eventual recovery. For popular collections.
Wilda Williams, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks (March 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805050671
• ISBN-13: 978-0805050677
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #768,223 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Evan Handler is an actor, author, screenwriter, and journalist who is probably best known as one of the stars of the HBO television show, and films, "Sex and the City," as well as for his current role as Charlie Runkle, best friend to David Duchovny's Hank Moody, on Showtime's hit comedy "Californication" (Season 5 airing January 2012). Evan's past film and TV credits include leading and featured roles in Ron Howard's film "Ransom," the early '80's box office smash "Taps," Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers," Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," and "The West Wing"; the ABC TV movie "The Three Stooges," and the sit-com "It's Like, You Know...," as well as memorable guest appearances on "Lost," "Six Feet Under," "Law and Order," and "Friends".

Prior to his work in film and television Evan played leading roles in seven
Broadway productions - all prior to his thirtieth birthday. Among them were "Six Degrees of Separation"; "I Hate Hamlet"; "Brighton Beach Memoirs"; "Broadway Bound"; and "Master Harold...and the boys". Off-Broadway, Evan appeared in two Donald Margulies world premieres, "Found a Peanut" (NYSF/Public Theater), and "What's Wrong with this Picture?" (Manhattan Theater Club); "SLAM" in EST's Marathon '84; and Jacquelyn Reingold's "String Fever," also at EST.

In addition to his acting appearances, Evan is the author of two books. TIME ON FIRE: MY COMEDY OF TERRORS, is Handler's critically acclaimed debut memoir, detailing his unlikely recovery from leukemia, and his escape from the clutches of those supposedly devoted to its treatment. His most recent book, IT'S ONLY TEMPORARY: THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD NEWS OF BEING ALIVE, describes the years since the illness, and the surprisingly long and complex journey toward long-delayed gratitude. A regular featured contributor to the Huffington Post, more information about Evan and his books is available at EvanHandler.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm and Wonderful, April 22, 2000

By 

Joseph - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors (Paperback)

Though I read his book a few years' ago, I still remember insights of Evan Handler. His recounting of his experiences with current therapies -- traditional and non-traditional -- and health care providers are memorable.

Whenever I think of the word "hope" I remember this: "I've heard the phrase -- "false hope" -- used by doctors and nurses again and again, in very self-congratulatory ways, as if, by exterminating it, they were providing a great philanthropic service to the community...I will state, unequivocally, that there is no such thing as false hope. It's an oxymoron. It can't exist. Hope has no connotations of certainty. Hope carries no assurance of success. Hope is the one thing in the world that can never, ever, be false. Hope is just what it says. A longing. A desire. Is there such a thing as a false, aching desire? I think, too often, that some doctors are protecting themselves from the aching desires, the hope, of their patients. It must be very painful to fail to save the life of someone who never concealed his passion to survive. His hope. Much more painful than the death of a patent willing to hide the intensity of his wish. If only they could learn what a potent source of energy they're wasting."

His comments about receiving needles are especially pertinent because hospitals, with their cost-cutting, have been training greater numbers of employees how to draw blood. Hospital administrators should read Handler's account of the artistry of a good phlebotomist and the torture inflicted by a poor phlebotomist.

I found his book to be a genuine and realistic account of his experiences and a gift to his readers. He is an excellent writer.

I wait and hope for many more articles and books from this author.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping and healing, January 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors (Hardcover)

A year after I had (supposedly) closed the door on a wrenching chapter in my life this book blew it open and allowed a true healing to begin. As I read this book I felt like I finally understood what the "other side" was... I was a man whose girlfriend was diagnosed with lymphoma and I struggled to be supportive, strong and appropriate in my heart and actions. I found myself thinking "YES... THAT'S IT" with every account of Handler's torturous descent into the pits of depression, his amazing resolve to fight and his heartbreaking account of his relationship with his girlfriend through the process. Every detail of Handler's journey reverberates with me, I have NEVER been so gripped by a book. The plane flight from LA to NY took what seemed like an hour as I was absorbed in the book. Touching down I felt like I was on a different planet. I immediately purchased a copy of the book and shipped it back to my now ex girlfriend in LA... and it touched off another healing there. For those of us touched by devastating illness, especially cancer with its appurtenant treatments and nightmares, this book is an absolute treasure. I feel like I finally "got it" and now I have peace. Few books have truly changed my life: this is one of them. My thanks to the author for an honest, visceral and dynamic book.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time for my Annual Reading of this book..., July 1, 2000

By 

Miss K (Venice, FL USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Time on Fire: My Comedy of Terrors (Paperback)

Once a year, I revisit this story, as every nurse and physician should. Take an active role in your treatment, and be an informed consumer...these days, healthcare is a business. Don't let the residents and fellows treat you like a pincushion. This book changed the way I do my job.