Amazon.com Review
Touching and courageous, The Victoria's Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming blends the medical realities of breast cancer with the wise and thoughtful opinions of author Jennie Nash. Nash shares every step of her experience with breast cancer, from the first mammogram to the final reconstructive surgery, in a series of "lessons" that divide chapters into stories that are equally meaningful to survivors and their friends and families. While many of the individual stories are sad, taken as whole this is an ultimately positive book--Nash survives with her health and family intact and is spared harrowing chemo and further metastasizing. Her lessons range from "bad news does less damage when it's shared" to "caregivers are human," and are illustrated with deeply personal stories of sobbing telephone messages, family arguments, and never-ending streams of frozen casseroles. The last lesson, "make the experience matter," revolves around Nash's first breast-cancer walk as a survivor, though it could just as easily revolve around the writing of this book, as it is sure to make a welcome difference in the lives of countless women. --Jill Lightner
From Publishers Weekly
After she discovered that a close friend from high school days was diagnosed with advanced metastatic lung cancer, Nash (Altared States: Surviving the Engagement, 1992), a freelance writer, knew intuitively that a tightness on the left side of her chest was a sign of breast cancer. Her first mammogram was negative, but at a six-month follow-up, 35-year-old Nash was diagnosed with the disease. In this forthright memoir, the author recalls in a series of chapters labeled "lessons" what she learned from going through the ensuing mastectomy and breast reconstruction. In Lesson #2 ("Bad News Does Less Damage When It's Shared"), she explains how the support of her husband, who lost his mother to breast cancer, her family and friends was a "critical component" to her recovery. In another touching but almost lighthearted lesson ("Courage Doesn't Always Dress in Camouflage"), Nash describes a party that she attended shortly before her operation, where she turned heads by uncharacteristically wearing a sexy red dress. Although she did not require chemotherapy or radiation (her margins were clean), Nash did suffer from the physical aftereffects of a free-flap reconstructive surgery that she nonetheless never regretted having. She shares the difficulties of discussing the illness with her two daughters, aged three and seven, and other stressful family events: during her recuperation, a feud developed between her husband and her mother that was obviously a result of the emotional toll her illness took on them. This honest account of a young mother who survived breast cancer will be helpful to others in the same situation.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
