Why is Cancer Vixen so special? Because graphic memoirs are groovy? Because Marisa Acocella Marchetto's artwork is sharp and witty? Or because of the tension between medium and message? Most of all, it's the tone. "What happens," asks Marchetto, "when a shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, big-city girl cartoonist finds... a lump in her breast?" The answer: pull on five-inch heels and "kick cancer's butt". This is Plum Sykes meets Ruth Picardie, via Lara Croft.
In 2004, Marchetto was 43 and engaged to a chic Manhattan restaurateur. Then, as Cancer Vixen relates, she discovered she had breast cancer. Being uninsured - which in America means a 49 per cent greater risk of dying from the condition - and overwhelmed by friends' advice, she wasn't helped by
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tim willis on the background to the sassy cartoon memoir that The First Post is serialising |
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a skinny model offering her husband a "healthy relationship".
But Marchetto was tough, too. She turned her experiences into a Glamour magazine strip - which morphed into Cancer Vixen. A bestseller in the US - where a Cate Blanchett movie is in pre-production - it's about to be published in the UK by Fourth Estate. And daily from next Monday, The First Post will serialise it.
So, what will readers get? Well, Marisa flirts with the Kabbala and special diets; she has a high-octane relationship with her mother - or 'smother'; she smiles bravely; collapses brokenly; and chronicles her condition as much her Casadei platforms, and her cancer cells as green meanies giving the finger.
It isn't all fun and games - there are lessons on cure and care - but a spoonful of sass sure helps the medicine go down. We recommend it's taken every day.
FIRST POSTED JANUARY 5, 2007 |
