Book Reviews FRACTURED BORDERS ment that contemporary women writ- In the section on breast cancer READING WOMEN’S ers represent the ill body through five poetry, mostly by African-American CANCER LITERATURE interrelated tropes of medicalization, and Jewish-American writers, she leakiness, amputation, prosthesis, analyzes poetic sequences such as Au- and (non) dying. These tropes span dre Lorde’s A Burst of Light (1988) and Mary K. Deshazer a vast array of issues facing anybody The Marvelous Arithmetics of Distance Ann Arbor: University of Michigan living with cancer, corresponding (1993), Lucille Clifton’s The Terrible Press, 2005 to the various needs: to interrogate Stories (1996), Alicia Ostriker’s The standard medical treatments to which Mastectomy Poems (1996), and Hilda REVIEWED BY EVA C. women’s bodies are subjected; to Raz’s Divine Honors (1997). Looking KARPINSKI reconceptualize the abject leaking for new metaphors of resistance and body as a transgressive, fluid form of transformation, Deshazer registers Fractured Borders is the first compre- embodiment and a source of ethical a shift in attitudes to the postcan- hensive critical analysis of different knowledge; to convert a site of lack cer body, especially the prosthetic forms of “autopathography,” that or loss into a creative locus of artistic body, from a politicized, ideological is, life writing about breast, uterine, and erotic celebration; to move from critique and rejection to a more nu- and ovarian cancer, three “gender- the logic of absence and substitution anced negotiation of personal agency specific” cancers that account for over toward “an empowering identity as and body image. 40 percent of all women’s cancers. both gendered and hybrid, feminist In the next chapter, she develops Deshazer covers primarily work and ‘posthuman’” and finally, to use a thesis that today’s popular cancer produced between 1990 and 2003, the experience of cancer and living fiction rewrites a tradition of women’s situating it against the background with uncertainty as transformational domestic and romance literature in of earlier literature, beginning with life events that can confer narrative terms of an idealized relationship Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) authority and agency even in the between a dying cancer patient and and Rose Kushner’s Breast Cancer: A face of death. her female supporters. Such fiction Personal History and an Investigative The remaining chapters are orga- exposes the feminization of the emo- Report (1975). nized around five genres of cancer tional work of caring performed by Her interpretation is based on close literature written predominantly dutiful daughters and best friends. readings supported by scholarly per- in the United States, Canada, and Her analysis is backed up by Barbara spectives ranging from postmodern England: drama, poetry, popular Ehrenreich’s critique of the “pink theories of the body to performance fiction, experimental fiction, and kitsch” and feminist theories of sen- theory, feminist literary criticism, autobiography. timental romance fiction. Deshazer French feminisms, and disability In the chapter devoted to feminist concludes that sentimental cancer studies. These counterhegemonic performance narratives, she examines fiction written by Patricia Gaffney, readings successfully challenge the the intersections of body politics and Elizabeth Berg, or Anna Quindlen sentimental, simplistic, or hetero- medical biopolitics in four plays from is linked to feminine rather than sexist approaches to representing the 1990s: Margaret Edson’s Wit, feminist ideology, promoting what women’s experience of cancer, show- Susan Miller’s My Left Breast, Lisa she calls “feminism lite” rather than ing “how cancer affects women’s sub- Loomer’s The Waiting Room, and a critical or materialist feminism. jectivities, relationships and politics Maxine Bailey and Sharon M. Lewis’s The three experimental cancer of location.” Sistahs (the last one being the only novels—Carole Maso’s Ava, Susan The first theoretical chapter in- Canadian text analyzed by Deshazer). Minot’s Evening, and Jeanette Win- corporates such landmark studies as Noting how the playwrights tap the terson’s Written on the Body—allow Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, ironies of cancer being diagnosed in Deshazer to investigate the proximity Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, stages, she reads theatrical represen- of desire and death. They inscribe Jackie Stacey’s Teratologies, and Zil- tations of cancerous breasts, ovaries, fluid subjectivities and powerful lah Eisenstein’s Manmade Breast and wombs as culturally marked erotic memory in order to confront Cancer, as well as literary works such and infused with social meanings. literary and medical representations as Mahasweta Devi’s “Breast-Giver,” She explores the potential that such of dying women. Gini Alhadeff’s Diary of a Djinn, and plays have for generating audience The final chapter provides a useful poems by Sylvia Plath and Adrienne ambivalence but also empathy and typology of cancer memoirs, modeled Rich. Deshazer constructs an argu- activism rather than voyeurism. on sociologist Maren Klawiter’s three 172 CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIES/LES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME paradigms of cancer activism in the women’s cancer literature. Solidly and treated for, breast cancer, and as San Francisco Bay area during the researched and engagingly written, a cellular immunologist as she ad- 1990s. The first group comprises the book also performs a function of dresses the problems inherent in this women’s personal narratives about witnessing and testimony, not only ideology. She exposes and demysti- their treatment journey, foreground- for Deshazer’s friend to whom it is fies many of the “pseudo-scientific” ing individual agency, dignity, and dedicated, but for all those women claims—the logical and scientific survival. Ideologically linked to whose fascinating texts she helps to fallacies—advanced by the gurus “Race for the Cure,” established bring to light. of positive thinking, while showing by the Komen Foundation, they how a whole industry has developed connect breast cancer to displays of Eva C. Karpinski teaches courses on to guide the newfound disciples. normative femininity, inspire hope narrative, cultural studies, transla- She highlights the improbability of and trust in science and medicine, tion studies, and feminist theory and individuals effecting change on any and promote biomedical research methodology in the School of Women’s broad scale as she ponders the politi- and early detection. The second Studies at York University. cal impact of a doctrine that focuses group consists of multicultural nar- on individual agency/responsibility ratives focused on identity politics while ignoring the external factors and community rather than faith in which impact their lives and the the medical and scientific establish- BRIGHT-SIDED: How importance of group activism which ment. They correspond to the type POSITIVE THINKING IS could result in positive, lasting change of activism exemplified by “Women UNDERMINING AMERICA for many people. And, while she and Cancer Walk.” Overtly feminist, writes of situations specific to the they critique systemic problems, Ehrenreich, Barbara United States, the notion that there mobilize anger, and promote social New York: Henry Holt & Co., is a certain power in positive think- services and treatment activism. The 2009 ing is also widespread in Canada; last category includes environmental thus, Ehrenreich’s book becomes narratives that show a causal connec- an important document in both REVIEWED BY BRENDA tion between cancer and an exposure countries. to pesticides, toxins, and radiation. BLONDEAU Ehrenreich’s discussion of her ex- These narratives are akin to “Toxic periences as she was diagnosed with, Tours of the Cancer Industry,” in If positive thinking is all that is and treated for, breast cancer provides their political crusades against chemi- required for each of us to achieve evidence of the inherent contradic- cal, pharmaceutical, nuclear, and happiness and good health then why tions and of the damaging impact other corporate polluters, against are so many people unhappy and/or of relying only on positive-thinking environmental racism and lack of in poor health? Are individuals lax when dealing with breast cancer. regulation and cancer prevention. To in their efforts, or are there other She notes the linguistic restrictions, what Dr. Susan Love summarizes as a reasons why we experience health as we can refer to ‘survivors’ but not “slash, burn, and poison” approach, concerns, precarious employment, ‘victims’, and as we have no label for they juxtapose “research, activism, unsuccessful relationships, spiritual those women who do not survive. and writing” as a “trio of weapons.” difficulties, economic insecurities and This extends to the notion that posi- Deshazer finds examples for each political turmoil? In her latest book, tive thinking will either eliminate any type of memoir in Katherine Russell Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking risk of having cancer, or it will greatly Rich’s The Red Devil, Sandra Butler is Undermining America (2009), aid in its cure. So, once diagnosed, the and Barbara Rosenblum’s Cancer in Barbara Ehrenreich addresses each often—although not always—un- Two Voices, and Sandra Steingraber’s of these issues, successfully challeng- spoken understanding is that cancer Living Downstream: An Ecologist ing the widespread notion that if we is somehow a sign of personal failure Looks at