Cancer Is a Bitch: (Or, I'd Rather Be Having a Midlife Crisis) (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: cancer snakes its way, purple bra, Baby Doll, The Purple Bra, New York City (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Baker, a former columnist for the online magazine Literary Mama living in Madison, Wis., is busy on her novel—with a protagonist she happens to have diagnosed with breast cancer—when real life intervenes. Shocked by a diagnosis of breast cancer herself, the 45-year-old mother of three begins a yearlong struggle to combat and comprehend the turn her life has taken. Baker and her radiologist husband trek to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Though her cancer has not metastasized and she's spared chemotherapy and radiation, Baker nevertheless faces the fear that the disease may return. As Baker grapples with the demands of motherhood and marriage, she also begins a relentless search to find the cause of her disease and head off its recurrence in the future—turning to organic foods, whipping up batches of organic face creams in her kitchen and avoiding electromagnetic fields. In this heartfelt memoir, Baker proves to be both humorous (she compares waiting for her follow-up mammogram results to a call back for an acting audition) and compassionate, as when a friend is diagnosed with colon cancer. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Product of a home torn by paternal abandonment, maternal psychological breakdowns, and a brother’s mental instability and suicide, Baker married a radiologist, “a button-down collar guy from earnest, puritanical people” whose “world was clearer and cleaner, less sardonic, more sure than any I’d ever known.” But their nine moves in the first 12 years of marriage followed her childhood’s many upheavals, so having a family and finding and fixing a dilapidated house provided roots and fast-forwarded time, while allowing little opportunity to mull future plans. By 45, she had had cancer, was negotiating an ambivalent marriage, and then her family found her unconscious on the bathroom floor from a boozy mixture of pills and self-pity. Her risk of further invasive cancer is four to five times greater than the average woman’s, and frequent checkups chop life into three- and six-month increments. She has taken the controversial tamoxifen. Should she have preventive mastectomy? Radiation? The abstract risks concretized into everyday worries—indeed, all everyday aspects of the disease—are made wrenchingly authentic in Baker’s down-to-earth account. --Whitney Scott

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Lifelong Books; 1st Da Capo Press Ed edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738211621
• ISBN-13: 978-0738211626
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #654,778 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Gutsy,Raw, Bold Look at Career, Love, Family, Marriage, Bras, and, Yes, Cancer, September 19, 2008

By	Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

In her subtitle, Gail Konop Baker wishes that instead of dealing with breast cancer, she could be battling a mid-life crisis. Well, she manages to tackle both with extreme candor, humor, and an openness that is enough to win over any reader, even if they don't think a cancer book sounds like much fun.

It's not, but that doesn't mean Baker is morose. She worries about her future, and more so, in a way, her family's, continually picturing her husband paired up with her yoga teacher or "Laura New Hampshire," a former neighbor. It's in exploring her almost-20 year marriage and its ups and downs that Baker truly shines, especially as her illness is part of that; her husband is a radiologist, and her fear over his reaction to her having cancer, adds to her overall stress.

She writes: "I love him. I hate him. I want him. I don't. But why doesn't anyone tell you how risky it is to trust another person with the all f you, to imprint your life with their life? How frightening it is to love and let yourself be loved? That to stay with someone you have to get over and get on and be willing to redefine the marriage over and over again. And compromise. Always compromise." These thoughts recur throughout the book, but they are not neurotic worries that can be annoying in memoir or fiction, but rather the very real worries about a life suddenly in chaos.

At one point, Baker notes that all her friends are reading Nora Ephron's I Feel About My Neck, and she wishes she could feel bad about something other than her breasts. When describing the physical changes, she harkens back to her days feeding her children, and later it's her daughters who help her pick out a purple bra.

Baker is not only concerned with her own well-being. In "Cancer Snakes Its Way Through the Neighborhood," one of the most moving chapters, she looks around at her neighbors and what they struggle with. Along the way she separately confronts each of her parents over how they handled their childrearing duties, pushing each relationship forward.

This is a book about cancer, yes, but it's really a book about love and family, ambition and hope. The writing hut Baker's husband built for her is a symbol of who she yearns to be, and even though you are holding the product of her efforts in your hand, already know in advance she has succeeded, you feel for Baker's thwarted writing dreams. This is a gutsy, brave, powerful, funny and tear-inducing memoir. Baker doesn't shrug off her diagnosis, but she learns how to live with the uncertainty of it, and embrace each day, and her family and friends to the fullest. That may sound sappy, and maybe it is, but it's sappy in the best kind of way, because it's real and questioning and raw. Kudos to baker on achieving her dream(s) and giving us a peek into her marriage, her family, and her heart, along with her doctors' offices.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mind Body Construction Ahead, September 21, 2008

By	Kimberly Chase-Adler (Norwich, VT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I just finished your book this afternoon. I couldn't put it down. My first (wildly inaccurate) impression was way off ! I was thinking.... is this going to be merely an intense screed, a wailing against horrid bad luck, an indulgent poor me diatribe against the inept medical community, a cry for help or a selfish attention-getting plea for sympathy?.....and honestly wondered where it would or could go. I kept on flipping the pages.....and the layers of humanity and vulnerability and FEAR began to build and it pulled me in, deeper and deeper until I felt as though I were personally going through your hell. But all the while, you managed to keep your midlife journey funny and poignant and courageous. I'm proud to say," I used to know Gail Baker way back when." I think having cancer gave you your life back, just like a live, grown-up REAL woman we'll call Pinocchia! Thank God you survived intact and sane. Now please, you owe the world some more tender, yet electrifying books!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Review, September 21, 2008

By	Cheryl K (CO) - See all my reviews

Gail Konop Baker brings readers a heart-felt, gut-wrenching beautiful story in her debut book. Cancer is a Bitch is Gail's own personal story. I commend Mrs. Konop Baker on sharing her story as it takes a lot of strength and guts to turn your life into a book and not just any books but an outstanding, wonderful, incredible book. I picked up this book and started reading; before you know it I was done.

One thing that made this book really enjoyable was Gail's sense of humor through the whole situation. There was evidence of this from things like the titles of each chapter to the comments Gail made. I have only one comment to make and that is I will never look at a chicken breast the same way again. I just feel in love with Mrs. Konop Baker and her family. Gail Konop Baker is one author to be on the look-out for as she will blow you away but in a good way. I look forward to many, many more books to come from Mrs. Konop Baker.