Dancing at the Edge of Life: A Memoir (Hardcover)

~ Gale Warner (Author), David Kreger (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

For anyone who's had a loved one die from cancer, Dancing at the Edge of Life will hit home and hit hard. After a pesky cough drove her to the doctor's office, 30-year-old poet and writer Gale Warner was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a viciously malignant form of the disease. She immediately started to record her often extraordinary thoughts in a diary. When she passed away a little more than a year later, she had compiled 1,000 pages of her spiritual and physical illumination and desperation, from the ecstasy of living through a good day to the excruciation of a bone marrow transplant.

What makes this book remarkable is Warner's perspective through it all. Though not particularly religious, she endured her treatment with Job-like patience, fortitude, and grace, reasoning that with each setback--and with each victory--she ought to be able to unveil a life lesson, to become closer to the spirit of the earth. She also perceived her bone marrow transplant as a ritual reincarnation of sorts. While her earth-goddess philosophy may strike some readers as being too far out in left field (she writes of feeling as if she's a channel of sorts for the pollution and destruction of the land), her love of the earth and perception of her role on it is extraordinarily thought provoking.

From Publishers Weekly

When poet and journalist Gale Warner, 29, learned that she had lymphoma, she used her journal to record her experiences and explore her feelings, hoping it might one day become a book. Though Warner didn't live to see its publication, her memoir serves well as the "gift" she had intended for patients and others seeking inspiration. "What a powerful tool the mystery of illness can be for learning and teaching," she discovered. Though relatively young at the time of her diagnosis, Warner was especially accomplished: she had traveled widely, started environmental organizations and written two books (including The Invisible Threads), but was particularly proud of her work with citizens environmental groups in the Soviet Union. She came to understand her illness in spiritual terms related to these ideals: "What grew [my tumor] was my very deep connection to the Earth, my openness to her pain," Warner claims. With the support of her physician husband, Kreger, who shaped the journal into its finished form, and countless friends, Warner confronted her cancer with remarkable honesty, wit and courage. She describes goddess-oriented healing rituals, several bouts of chemotherapy, her boundless hope and her occasional depression, and her irrepressible urge to walk, swim and dance in the natural world she so loved. Some readers may be troubled by Warner's construction of her illness as a metaphorAbut Warner anticipates this criticism, noting that "[t]o each of us, cancer says different things... for some, cancer is... a random event with no 'cause.'" Others may find Warner's New Age beliefs alienating. But the humor, compassion, determination and acceptance she shares in this affecting book are truly extraordinary.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion Books; 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786863927
• ISBN-13: 978-0786863921
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,216,441 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #29 in

  Books > Health, Mind & Body > Cancer > Lymphatic

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an important book, June 24, 2000

By	Maria from London (London UK) - See all my reviews

I feel it's a privilege for me to have followed Gale Warner on her journey: What was her journey? A journey we'll all have to embark on, sooner or later (hopefully, later), since we're all going to die. Gale Warner was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at age 30 and lived 13 more months. In these months, she wrote in her journal about her thoughts, her insights, her struggle, her pain, and finally her acceptance and serenity: But it was never easy, never simple. Gale Warner saw cancer as the ultimate test of her faith (her particular, private sort of faith). She worked and struggled with her own mortality. In her own words-

"Limits. In order to boil water, you must put it in a pot. The pot sets a limit and so does cancer. When you learn you are not immortal, that you may only have a few years to embrace life, you start doing so. The photo of the Earth on my wall shows its beauty- and its limits. It would not be the same if those same colors and swirls were sloshed all over space".

"Dancing at the edge of life" is an important book, because in the end, everybody has to find their own answers or anyway, start asking their own questions. I would recommend this book to anyone and of course, not only to people with cancer. You don't have to get diagnosed with lymphoma to start thinking of the "big" questions, you don't have to wait to have cancer in order to learn how to live.

Another reason that makes this memoir important, is that Gale Warner must have been a very special, intelligent & sensitive person. She had worked as an environmental journalist & was also an accomplished poet. A person that fully embraced life was ultimately able to fully embrace the journey towards death.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make room on your shelves...this one's a keeper!, August 24, 1998

By A Customer

If ever a book had the potential to change lives for the better, it's this one. Gale's diary reveals a sensitive, intelligent and spiritual woman - whose genuine attraction to life reminds me of an infant's sweet, simple fascination with its newly discovered hand. I was most inspired by her courage during the final months of her conflict with cancer: it never faltered - even as she struggled to define her religious beliefs. This book leaves one with a rekindled passion for life. Tonight at dusk I'm going to seek out the sunset ...something I haven't done since I was a kid.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Her story teaches us that spiritual awareness is a choice., September 23, 1998

By	Sandra Cline (Albuquerque, New Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Gale Warner's story is positive proof that each of us, if we make a conscious choice, can see and feel the Spirit of God in everything and everyone, in spite of, and especially during, adversity and pain. It is the little moments, Gale's descriptions of that divine CONNECTEDNESS, consistent and enduring, that touches me the most. Her tender, poetic prose allows us to glimpse the radiant, spiritual essence that is the birthright we all share. During these troubled times, the world finds itself somewhat short of role models, but with the loving gift of "Dancing at the Edge of Life," Gale remains a lasting example. In her own words, she was and is "a daughter of the four winds, a child of the moon and rain and sun ... sister of the whale, and the juniper." I suspect that she now shines brightly in the heavens; each person who reads this book will feel the warmth of her glow, and best of all, will want to share it with others.