This highly recommended account demonstrates the value of cutting-edge cancer research, but it is also beautifully crafted, and many readers will find it entertaining and—though the author might not like this term—inspiring.”—Library Journal, starred review
“Exhilarating and entertaining...Williams delivers a complex tale about a complex disease.”—Kirkus, starred review
“[Williams] eloquently and generously shares her story and her emotions in this remarkably illuminating account.”—Booklist, starred review
“Devastating and wise, clear-eyed and funny, A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles is a cliché-busting tour guide through a country no one volunteers to visit (and how can you resist a cancer memoir that beings “Spoiler: I Lived.”) This is a book for all the survivors—of cancer, of marriage, of mothers, and of children; of all the trials and journeys that make us who we are.”
– Jennifer Weiner, #1 New York Times bestselling author of novels including Good In Bed, Best Friends Forever, and Who Do You Love
“This astonishing and inspiring book reveals not only the experimental treatment that healed Mary Elizabeth Williams but also the deep reserves of grit, love, and humor that help people face life’s toughest tests. When you laugh and cry at the exact same time, you know you are reading an amazing survival story.”
– Piper Kerman, author the #1 New York Times Bestseller Orange Is The New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison
“In writing a book not just about her own cancer but about the vexing history and science of cancer itself, Mary Elizabeth Williams has given us both a page-turning personal story and deeply informed look at a disease that fascinates even as it terrifies.”
– Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion
“I so admire Mary Elizabeth Williams’s gaze and candor, but perhaps most of all her humor, which keeps us great company in this touching book.”
– Jami Attenberg, author of Saint Mazie and The Middlesteins
“This isn’t simply a book about cancer. It’s about the powerful connections that emerge in crisis, the discovery of our own carrying capacity for grief and compassion, and the marvel of resilience and stubborn mystery that is the human body. Mary Elizabeth Williams offers an important lesson in cutting-edge medicine, but also how to endure the worst days of your life while remaining tough, tender, and funny as hell.”
– Sarah Hepola, author of Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget
“Mary Elizabeth Williams is an author you’ll want to seek out and befriend once you’ve finished her book. She bares so much of her soul on the page—her joys, her fears, her suffering—we can’t help but fall in love with her. This is as real as it gets.”
– Susannah Callahan, author of Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness
“A Series of Catastrophes & Miracles shattered me. In the best possible way. One minute I’d be bawling, the next unable to stop laughing. Mary Elizabeth Williams is the funniest, raunchiest, smartest, heart-fillediest, science geekiest, and most genuine guide not only into the sh*t-out-of-luck cancer netherworld but also into the unvarnished reality of marriage, motherhood, and family. I’d call her a warrior, but she’d hate me for that. So I’ll simply say this: f*ck cancer and buy this book.”
– Deborah Copaken Kogen, bestelling author of The Red Book and Shutterbabe
“Mary Elizabeth Williams understands what it means to straddle life and death and the story she brings back is harrowing, hilarious, enlightening, and, above all, touched with the kind of grace the comes from having stared mortality right in the eye.”
– Gayle Forman, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling novel If I Stay
★ 02/01/2016
Until a few years ago, a diagnosis of metastatic melanoma was nearly always a death sentence. Researchers have made big advances in a short time, and this memoir shows what those breakthroughs look like from the patient's point of view. Williams, a writer for salon.com, wife, and mother, chronicles her diagnosis, surgery, metastasis, and successful treatment with two new immunologic therapies, one in an early Phase 1 clinical trial. Snarky, funny, frequently off-color, Williams is a gifted writer who turns the greatest crisis of her life into an engaging story that reads almost like a novel. While the author focuses on the personal rather than medical aspects of her experience, the medical and scientific details she includes are accurate and clear. She shows little patience with unscientific sentimentality, dismissing the "courageous battle" narrative often associated with cancer patients. Instead, she writes, "I didn't get better because I prayed correctly or because I'm strong. I got better because the science worked on me." VERDICT This highly recommended account demonstrates the value of cutting-edge cancer research, but it is also beautifully crafted, and many readers will find it entertaining and—though the author might not like this term—inspiring.—Janet Crum, Northern Arizona Univ. Lib., Flagstaff
Writer Mary Elizabeth Williams is reflective and rueful in her performance of her memoir about her journey through Stage IV melanoma. Williams capably balances information on cancer and its treatment with the pathos, banality, and flashes of humor that characterize her life with her husband and their two small children during the years she sought treatment. Ultimately, she wound up in a clinical trial of an immunotherapy regimen that saved her life. Williams is bare in her reading and writing. Her conversations with friends and family members also undergoing cancer treatment particularly shine with love, humor, and candor. This emotional and thoughtful portrait of a life sheds light on a new and promising branch of cancer treatment. A.F. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine
★ 2016-01-20
Who would have thought a book about being diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma could be exhilarating and entertaining? Salon.com senior staff writer Williams (Gimme Shelter, 2009) describes going to her dermatologist to check out a scab on her scalp. A biopsy indicated malignant melanoma that required immediate surgery that would leave a permanent bald spot. But it would also begin a lifesaving relationship with Memorial Sloan Kettering doctors. The spoiler at the beginning assures readers that instead of the usual monthslong life expectancy for stage 4 melanoma patients, the author is currently cancer free, even after her disease had progressed to metastases affecting her lungs and a spot on her back. Married and in her 40s with two daughters when she was diagnosed in 2010, Williams experienced all the anxiety, fear, anger, and sadness that come with such a diagnosis, but the writing never sinks to weepiness. The author was buoyed by a strong personality and a supporting cast of family and friends, including one whose ovarian cancer serves as a powerful subtext that cancers often kill. What saved Williams was experimental immunological therapy. She entered a phase 1 clinical trial using a combination of drugs designed to thwart the ability of cancer cells to inhibit the body's immune system from attacking those cells. Usually these trials are conducted to check drug toxicity and dosages. In this case, the drugs helped so many patients that trials for other cancers are now in progress, giving a boost to immunotherapy research in general. The author explains it all: the science, the scans, the constant blood draws, the side effects, the stigma, the guilt of getting sick, the guilt of getting better, the effects on others, including the friends who stop calling you, as well as the support groups she found so helpful. Williams delivers a complex tale about a complex disease, and by sharing a narrative rich in detail, personalities, and New York scenes, she will ease the burdens of those immediately affected and inform others of progress in cancer research.