Cancer in Two Voices

Excerpt: "I am only the first among our friends to have cancer. There will be others... Such a weighty responsibility, to be the first... I am trying to live self-consciously (and perhaps die self-consciously) in an exemplary manner. Many of my friends will see their future in the way I handle mine".

Barbara Rosenblum wrote these words on March 7, 1985, two weeks after she had been diagnosed as being in the advanced stages of breast cancer. She died in the arms of her life partner, Sandra Butler, on Valentine's Day, February 14, 1988.

During the three years between Barbara's diagnosis and her death, she and Sandra documented the impact of Barbara's illness on both of their lives. Cancer in Two Voices, first published in 1991 and winner of the 1992 Lambda Non-Fiction Award, is the result of this collaboration, a unique glimpse into the intimate lives of two women in a relationship during a time of crisis. This compilation of Barbara and Sandra's essays, journal entries, and letters is a testimony to the power of love to transform experience, to celebrate life and love in the face of impending loss.

Since its publication five years ago, thousands of breast cancer patients, their families, friends, and heath professionals have been comforted and inspired by Cancer in Two Voices. Because breast cancer is one of the leading causes of death for women today, Barbara and Sandra's words ring as true today as they did when first written. Spinsters Ink proudly presents a new, expanded edition of this ground-breaking work. This is the 2nd edition.

Shifting back and forth between pk the late Rosenblum's and her surviving lover Butler's journal entries and letters, this landmark feminist perspective on breast cancer describes how Rosenblum's malignant cancer was misdiagnosed as benign fibrocystic disease. Even after a correct diagnosis results in a mastectomy and intensive radiation and chemotherapy, the cancer runs rampant through her body. The work is an indictment of the medical profession's casual attitude to women's illness, and also a touching chronicle of two women in their forties grappling intellectually and emotionally with premature death. No detail is spared to describe the appalling effects of chemotherapy and radiation therapy. But each moment of joy is relished, and Rosenblum notes with black humor how she squeezed out her "foam rubber tit" after swimming. The shared but contrasting Jewishness of Rosenblum, daughter of Holocaust survivors, and Butler, daughter of suburban assimilationists, adds poignancy, as does the image of Butler ( Conspiracy of Silence ) scattering her lover's ashes in her garden. Author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This collection of journal entries, letters, and essays records the intensely personal, painful, and powerful journey Butler and Rosenblum took when Rosenblum was diagnosed with breast cancer. In writing about how they dealt with the disease, they describe both what it is like to be a dying person and what it is like to live with and love a dying person. They also recount how they learned to live each moment to the fullest. Rosenblum writes, "Moments are very important because there may not be any after that . . . . Cancer exquisitely places you in the moment." They express their anger and anguish at the public health system that initially misdiagnosed Rosenblum's cancer as fibrocystic disease. Highly recommended for all public libraries and special collections on women and on death and dying.
- Patricia Sarles, Mt. Sinai Medical Ctr. Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.