Diary
Cancer Gadfly: Still Alive, or The Mortifications of Survival
Readers of the London Review of Books will know that Jenny Diski has been writing diary posts about her cancer for over a year. In “Who’ll be last?”
Losing Friends
I don’t love Facebook, even though I’ve used it, abjectly, to promote my last book. Beyond the obvious embarrassment of self-exposure, the most anxiety-producing feature of the Facebook
Chemo Brain
Most define it as a decrease in mental “sharpness”—being unable to remember certain things and having trouble finishing tasks or learning new skills. When it starts, how long
Cancer Gadfly: Limbo
After a series of stable scans, and almost 4 years of monthly chemo, last week my cancer treatment was abruptly cancelled. No doctors, nurses, blood draws, or infusions,
“Roberta liked Flavia… they shared a tennis court” (apologies to Virginia Woolf)
I can’t have been the only viewer of the U.S. Open women’s final, who teared up at the sight of the two competitors, Roberta and Flavia, embracing each
“What are you looking for, Mama?” Summer Diary, continued
A man’s voice interrupts my reverie with the inquiry, as I stand surveying the salad on offer at the local West Side Market. Proof that I’m back in
Cancer Gadfly: What’s God Got To Do With It?
I was mulling over Oliver Sacks’s mellow meditation on his terminal cancer diagnosis, when Jimmy Carter came out with his cancer story. (Curiously, both illnesses caused by melanoma.)
“Where are you trying to go?” London, Summer Diary, 2015, continued
I turn to see a tiny woman about my age, dressed like me, sporting large sunglasses and clunky sneakers. Since I am a short person to begin with,
Welcome. Some musings on my current preoccupations with the worlds of illness and the worlds of books: the vicissitudes of living with cancer and the need, for now, to launch (a k a promote) my new memoir, My Brilliant Friends: Our Lives in Feminism. Naturally, I inhabit both spaces, which makes for a strangely bifurcated, though far from boring, existence. Click to view both Feminist Friendship Archive and My Multifocal Life projects.