Table of Contents
advance praise
Katherine Malmo has written an unflinching, unsentimental, profoundly moving, wickedly funny (yes, I said funny) deeply courageous book detailing one womans diagnosis, treatment and recovery from inflammatory breast cancer. These stories are made of a fictioneers wit, a poets sensibility, a storytellers enthusiasm and a survivors heart. They have the power to reconnect us to that part of ourselves we need when anything bad happens, that gritty, humored, resilient, unspeakably beautiful spark in the center of each of us that knows only how to lock its jaws and hang on.Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted
This moving, courageous, honest, and beautifully written account is not about the life of a cancer survivor, but rather of a life defined by living. It was a privilege to read it.Nancy Pearl, NPR commentator and author of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason
This book is full of life as the author faces having inflammatory breast cancer and losing her breasts. I love the way she raises questions and makes observations that are intriguing, even occasionally a bit funny, but mostly just the kind of things wed want to know and wish someone would ask. Plus she writes with skill and panache. Her journey was one I felt compelled to join as she navigates with a unique kind of grace that question now what! Simply put I loved this book.Sheryl Cotleur, Buyer, Book Passage
Staying sane through the insanity of Inflammatory Breast Cancer, letting the mind take you away while poison kills invisible invaders. That is how Katherine walked then ran through prognosis to NED land. Watching friends she had made through breast cancer support groups lose their battles, Katherine never mentions guilt that many women feel when they are still standing as many fall beside them, but you can read between the lines as she takes you through her journey. Going from a mountain top in China to a plastic covered recliner in a chemotherapy room speaks to the reality of the insanity of what life had thrown at Katherine, with Ben by her side wondering what was next. The next should be for another book by Katherine Malmo.Patti Bradfield, President of the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Foundation
Katherine Malmo touches the most tender subject with intimate grace, subtle wit, and piercing honesty. Through the crucible of her own experience, she has forged a life-affirming collection of dazzling stories, lit by hope and sparked by compassion.Melanie Rae Thon, author of The Voice of the River
Its a hell of a thing for anyone to get diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer. Katherine Malmo shares the terror of thatand keeps going. Who in This Room puts breast cancer square in its place, right in the middle of life: messy, funny, scary, mundane, over-the-top-emotional life, life filled with fly-fishing and chemo, birthday parties and best friends and breast inserts. Malmo writes with honesty and a hard-won, appealing humor about the gritty and absurd aspects of living with cancer. That this young woman makes it out alive is amazing; by writing about it so gracefully, she lets us take heart from her long haul. Brava, Katherine Malmo. Who in This Room is an extraordinary achievement.
Summer Wood, author of Wrecker Lyrical, vivid, a memoirist work of art that glitters as it charges forward and takes your breath away.Priscilla Long, author of The Writers Portable Mentor
If all stories are in some fashion a quest, Katherine Malmos story quests toward the triumph of curiosity over fear. Sometimes we dont control our own destinies, Malmo notes near the end of this book, which is her way of shifting the essential question from what is it? to dont think I didnt notice my questions arent being answered and what are we going to do about this? Employing a language as precise as possible, a recipe recommended by Italo Calvino in his essay Exactitude, with prose welded out of a grab bag of whippet smart observations and searing self-inspection, Malmo guides us from salad spinners to vulturesthese birds didnt cause cancer, but they were attracted to particles in the air that didto welding to adoption on her often funny but never self-pitying quest to de-mythologize cancer. Its a quest this reader wouldnt have wanted to miss.Scott Driscoll, Seattle-area author and writing instructor
A moving, touching memoir about the trauma and triumph of surviving breast cancer. An inspiring read!Nick OConnell, author of On Sacred Ground: The Spirit of Place in Pacific Northwest Literature, www.thewritersworkshop.net.
Who In This Room is an honest, unflinching look at life with cancer, welded into a thing of lyrical beauty. Katherine Malmo, an observant and gifted writer, never misses the irony or insight of a moment, including the one that gives the book its title.Erica Bauermeister, author of Joy For Beginners
Dedicated to Thankful Emily Jane Dade 19772007
The infantilizing trope is perplexing.
Certainly men diagnosed with
prostate cancer do not receive
gifts of Matchbox cars.
Barbara Ehrenreich Harpers Magazine November 2001
Publishers Note
Who in This Room is a work of creative nonfiction. While the events in this book are based in reality, some of the names of characters and places have been changed with respect for privacy. The feelings and decisions described in this book reflect the authors personal experience with illness and do not necessarily speak for the many different journeys of cancer patients and survivors.
For more information, contact the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Foundation at www.eraseibc.com or Young Survivor Coalition at www.youngsurvival.org.
Authors Note
As soon as I completed chemotherapy, I began to write. Some said it was too soon, that I should give myself some time to process and to heal before I laid my life on the page. But I couldnt. The section Who in This Room came out fully formed in a single afternoon. It is written in second person and the use of you gave me much needed distance from the material, allowing me the freedom to escape the story while telling it. It allowed me to pretend everything that was happening to me was happening to someone else.
From there I wasnt sure where to go. I knew I didnt want to write a memoir. The thought of recounting my whole story was overwhelming. I wanted to capture specific cancer-related moments yet also write about non-cancer life. I wanted to write about travel, fishing, lemon trees, and swimming.
I stayed with second person for the next section, Permission to Land. As I continued to write through post-chemo radiation and then through my recovery from treatment, I moved into the
