Memoir “Rehearsals for Dying” Examines Ripple Effects of Cancer https://ift.tt/87FuoZq
Just as there is no one way to be a patient with or a caregiver for someone with cancer, there is no singular way to write a cancer memoir. But there are plenty of “ick” ways to engage with and write about the sick, such as awarding “a mimeographed certificate with sunshine stickers on it” to an adult cancer patient who completes radiation.
In Rehearsals for Dying, author Ariel Gore shares and schools readers through her “digressions on love and cancer.” She successfully employs braided narratives and expansive research to examine time and humans’ natural desire for more of it.
Rehearsals for Dying focuses on the four-plus years Gore’s wife, celebrated chef Deena Chafetz, lived with metastatic breast cancer. Deena and Ariel’s story — which Gore wrote in a file her partner could access — also incorporates threads of dear friends and their embodied experiences with cancer: Sia, an old friend who’s present for the first half of the book, and then gone; Liv, a former student and stripper who worried about her work post-mastectomy and reconstruction; Miriam, who assembled a committee to help administer aspects of her care; and Earl, who came out as trans in his early fifties and was diagnosed with breast cancer while preparing for top surgery.
The structure for the book came from a suggestion Chafetz gave Gore early on: “She gave me a book called The Story of Sushi and said she wanted me to structure our book more like that, braiding specific individuals’ experiences with the broader history and context.” Gore’s inclusion of these various narratives highlights the commonality of breast cancer (one in eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime) as well as the diverse realities of living with the disease.
Gore’s book is also well-researched. She writes, “In grad school, I used to pore through books and papers and primary sources about things near my heart and experience. My professors called it ‘me-search.’ I focused in, stepped back, focused in again.” For every few vignettes, there is a passage from an academic article, research guide, or popular essay, and/or from literary writers (Lucille Clifton, Audre Lorde, Gertrude Stein, Susan Sontag, among others) who penned their own cancer or caregiver narratives. In addition to the frankness of Gore’s writing (no “upside of cancer” here), this quilting style is what I enjoyed most about the book. Despite the somber subject matter, I looked forward to how Gore would stitch the story together.
In the section entitled “Paint It Black,” Gore integrates a Facebook status update from Chafetz (“I take a bone strengthener with side effects that include broken bones. / It’s funny except for the part where it’s not.”); a partial definition for metastatic breast cancer from the National Library of Medicine; Gore’s attempt at blackout poetry with a cancer drug infosheet (“living in the moment / is the #1 prescribed); and a Biospace article on the failures of the same drug.
The people of the healthcare industry do not escape unscathed either. Drs. Cowboy, Ego, Inappropriate, Mushroom, and Vogue are all characters, but not caricatures. They say the most insensitive things, such as describing Chafetz’s post-mastectomy reconstruction options as a serendipitous boob job, and discrediting Chafetz’s new symptoms as side effects to medication: “You’re no spring chicken, Ms. Chavez [sic].”
From the time of her diagnosis to her passing in 2023, Deena Chafetz spent more than four years living with metastatic breast cancer— as did her wife and primary caregiver, Ariel Gore. Rehearsals for Dying catalogs the couple’s shared and separate experiences, complemented by friends’ anecdotes and academics’ analyses. “This is my story,” Gore writes, “But I’m not the one who got breast cancer. (There is no such thing as repetition. Only insistence.) Deena helped me write this story, but it’s a wife’s pen.” Gore’s memoir is a must-read for anyone seeking an authentic, more inclusive narrative of the ripple effects of cancer.
NONFICTION Rehearsals for Dying
By Ariel Gore
Feminist Press
Published March 11, 2025
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