Barnes & Noble / iBooks / IndieBound / Amazon
What happens when a shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, about-to-get-married big-city girl cartoonist with a fabulous life finds . . . a lump in her breast? http://www.pbs.org/video/the-w
That’s the question that sets this powerful, funny, and poignant graphic memoir in motion. In vivid color and with a taboo-breaking sense of humor, Marisa Acocella Marchetto tells the story of her eleven-month, ultimately triumphant bout with breast cancer—from diagnosis to cure, and every challenging step in between.
Cancer survivor and The New Yorker cartoonist, Marisa Acocella Marchetto is something of a hero for figuring out a successful approach to lending much-needed comic relief to a sad subject. Her best-selling graphic novel chronicles her 11-month battle with breast cancer and coming out the other side (vixen, rather than victim).
Not so Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s graphic memoir, “Cancer Vixen.” Marchetto, a contributor to The New Yorker, usually specializes in droll depictions of joyless, emaciated women in four-figure outfits. In her second book, which originated as a comic strip in Glamour, she manages to be unflaggingly perky as she tells us the story of her cancer, starting with her diagnosis three weeks before her wedding.
She gives us haunting drawings of cancer’s victims, whom she places up in the clouds, still grouped in the “cancer clusters” in which they died. (Remember Love Canal?) But mostly, Marchetto’s cartoons in this book are ebullient: cancer cells under the microscope are little green circles sticking out their tongues and giving you the finger; the grim reaper wields a vacuum cleaner; her higher self is a floating, one-eyed yogi with amazing abs.
But “Cancer Vixen” isn’t all silliness. There are important lessons about treatment options and insurance (women — like Marchetto herself — who are uninsured at the time of their diagnoses have a 49 percent greater risk of dying from breast cancer). Too many women don’t know and aren’t told about lymphedema, a chronic and extremely painful condition that can occur after surgery to remove the sentinel lymph nodes, and is often brought on by avoidable circumstances like postsurgical exposure to extreme temperature or lifting heavy objects. Marchetto’s sunny drawings comfort and amuse while providing a beneficial education on cancer’s dark details.
Another thing we learn in “Cancer Vixen” is that Marchetto is very, very proud of being very, very in with A-list New York City. Her status is brought to our attention at every turn: where she gets seated at fashion shows (front row); who she hangs with (her “BFF’s” from the gossip column Page Six); what kind of shoes she wears (Chanel, Cesare Paciotti, Giuseppe Zanotti); her celebrity-studded fount of spiritual guidance (the Kaballah Center).
Even her exploration of her own weakness and jealousy underscores her desirability; her husband, the “It restaurateur” Silvano Marchetto of exclusive Da Silvano, is forever being hit on by models, yet is mysteriously immune to their charms. In its giddy fixation on lip gloss and sling-backs, “Cancer Vixen” is less a contribution to the established genre of cancer literature than it is the inauguration of something marginally novel: Sick-Chick Lit.
Some readers may find Marchetto’s self-proclaimed “fabulista life” hard to relate to. But perhaps she can be forgiven a little gloating because she has also shared, in visually invigorating and fairly unflinching detail, everything about her experience with cancer — from her excruciating neulasta shots to her chemo-induced night sweats. Perhaps it’s human nature to remind yourself and others of what’s enviable in your life after you’ve revealed what’s painful and difficult about it.
Breast cancer, after all, is easy to relate to. One in eight women will get it and all of us will be affected by it. My own mother has had three mastectomies. It’s confusing, I know, but I can explain. Ask me about it the next time you see me at Da Silvano.
Marisa Acocella Marchetto, author of the graphic memoir Cancer Vixen, visits with Ronnie this week. Ms. Marchetto discusses her new book in which she describes what happens when a “fabulous” single girl living in New York City without health insurance discovers she has breast cancer. She shares her story with Ronnie and talks about the healing power of humor. Ronnie M. Eldridge, articulate, outspoken, and passionate member of the New York City Council from 1989 to 2001, hosts this series which covers the issues and institutions, the people and politics of New York City.
