Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person: A Memoir in Comics

Abstract

Miriam Engelberg is a successful cartoonist who was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 43. Like many who face trauma, tragedy and illness, she was unable tell her story in traditional written and visual forms. Instead, she has written a distinctly unique cartoon memoir. Following in the Art Spiegelman tradition of graphic novels, Engelberg walks us through every emotional and physical stage of the disease, from diagnosis to a return to normal life and everything in between: waiting for the biopsy results by pretending to be doing everything but that, awkwardly breaking the diagnostic news to horrified acquaintances, shopping for wigs while fighting nausea and disorientation from her cancer drugs, feeling like an outsider in support groups, and speculating about what caused the cancer in the first place - overzealous cheese consumption or apathy about multi-vitamins? Cancer Made Me A Shallower Person is an offbeat and darkly humorous account of one very funny woman's battle with an uncertain and often fatal illness.

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