The Summer of Her Baldness: A Cancer Improvisation

by Catherine Lord

"No eyebrows. No eyelashes. When it rains the water will run straight down into my eyes," Catherine Lord wrote before her hair fell out during chemotherapy. Propelled into an involuntary performance piece occasioned by the diagnosis of breast cancer, Lord adopted the online persona of Her Baldness-an irascible, witty, polemical presence who speaks candidly about shame and fear to her listserv audience. While Lord suffers from unwanted isolation...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0292702574
• ISBN13: 9780292702578
• Release Date: May 2004
• Publisher: University of Texas Press
• Length: 247 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.1" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

Chemotherapy Doesn't Have Anything On Love

Robert Summers says: "Catherine Lord went through chemotherapy, and she was radically transformed. We now read the book (the aftermath?), and we go through a different therapy -- in which we become transformed. Indeed, this auto-biography (auto-geo-graphy? auto-topo-logy?) is a book of transformations: it is always at work. Without a doubt, I am deeply thankful to Lord for generously performing the details, insights, and performative self-portraits of her encounter with breast cancer, which became, through transference of love, my breast cancer, but in no way a non-Other-eradicating one. If anyone has been touched by cancer (through their own body or a loved one), then this is a "must read" because it not only opens up and out to that which can kill, but it also openly demonstrates that which gives us sustenance and hence (a) life: friends, love, hope, desire. I will forever be thankful for this book, this work, and the letters and words that this book has done on and in me. All this written, just to say, "Thank you, Catherine Lord! I love to you"

Baldness unveiled

Catherine Lord's book exemplifies the move towards a biting, honest cultural criticism that takes its power from its visceral link to personal trauma. Amazingly enough, Lord manages to explore and perform her battle with breast cancer with humor and pathos without lapsing into self-indulgence. This is a deeply moving book but also an instructive one, subtly instructing the reader in essential emotional strategies of survival.

Bravo for her baldness!

Catherine Lord has written what may well be the most complex, multi-layered account of the day to day drama, fear, anxiety and exhaustion that are all part of going through a major illness, in this case, breast cancer. Simultaneously full of rage and love, biting wit and medical detail, this book, by a sophisticated art critic and writer, is a must for any woman ( and some men) who desires more specifics of life after initial diagnosis. Although very real, it reads like a great novel. Her baldness doesnt pull any punches but will be a great companion.