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Note: The story and the images in the book we cover in this episode could bring back memories of unhappy and traumatic events for some people who have experienced cancer in some way.

This episode centers on the fictional story of a forty-three-year-old woman’s course with recurrent, metastatic breast cancer. She has a coming-of-age-daughter and a treasured husband. The story is a common one in literature and in real life, but the way it’s told in Maddie Mortimer’s novel, Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies, is not common in that a lot of the narration—variously in first-, second-, and third-person forms—comes from the cancer itself, as that can be inferred. Nor is it common in Mortimer’s use of a variety of written and graphic forms. While these and many other aspects of the novel are worthy of attention, our interest was limited to what the cancer narration offers to the story and the understanding of cancer from the pathological to the personal.

Mortimer’s writing style and the literary forms she used made it possible for us to differentiate scenes and scenarios we described as clever, affecting, compelling, gorgeous, or beautiful from events and realizations we described as awful, obscene, terrible, scary, or hard. We worked to reconcile these antipodes as necessary for the complete and poignant portrayal of the course this cancer took and the effects it had on the characters. The distinction also assisted us in considering whether or not all or just parts of the book could be interesting and useful to various constituencies (e.g., patients, family, students, support groups, etc). While doing so, we often expressed astonishment that Mortimer, who was in her mid-twenties when she wrote the novel, and has no formal training in medicine, could possess such sophisticated and technical insights into the molecular biology, pathology, and pharmacology of cancer, and in the emotional torments and practical realities accompanying it.

We were joined by Dr. Laurel Lyckholm from West Virginia University Cancer Institute, who started her medical career as a registered nurse and later became a physician board certified in medicine, medical oncology, hematology, and hospice and palliative medicine. She has formal training and experience in medical ethics and medical humanities, and has a particular interest in support programming for adolescents and young adults with cancer and their families. Her work and dedication have won her many awards for teaching, leadership, and patient care. We were fortunate to have her with us and we thank her profusely for her valuable time and thoughtful perspectives.

Links

• Publisher (Simon & Shuster) website for Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies
• Video interview with Maddie Mortimer in which she describes how she created the novel.
• Russell Teagarden’s blog piece on doxorubicin infusion effects as the cancer describes them.

Audio source

Audio clips were from Maps of Our Spectacular Bodies audiobook available on Spotify.

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