I went to hear Annabelle Gurwitch speak about her new book, “The End of My Life Is Killing Me: The Unexpected Joys of a Cancer Slacker” (Zibby Publishing) in New York last month.
Gurwitch told a story about getting a COVID test with her college-age son early in the pandemic. She mentioned that she had a little cough, and was sent to get an x-ray. She had what she thought might be a flirtation with a handsome doctor who said her x-ray looked fine. Gurwitch was driving home with her son when the front fender fell off the car, and the handsome doctor called — unfortunately, not to ask her out, but to apologize. He told her, “I made a mistake. I read the wrong results. You have a concerning mass on your right lung.”
This, of course, is not a funny story. Except the room filled with people who had come to Gurwitch’s book event were laughing as she told the story. Gurwitch is a best-selling author and humor writer. She is also an actress and the longtime co-host of “Dinner and a Movie” on TBS. She knows how to tell a good story, even an incredibly personal and difficult one. As one reviewer succinctly put it: “A very funny writer tackles the ultimate unfunny topic: lung cancer.”
The night I heard her speak, Gurwitch signed a copy of her new book to me. I didn’t want to mark it up when I read it to write this piece, so I stuck sticky notes on the pages which had passages I wanted to remember, or that made me laugh. The book now has a bouquet of colorful sticky notes sprouting out of it.
After Gurwitch was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer, she found out she was a candidate for a new “biomarker targeted therapy” treatment. She was told, “Now is the best time in history to be diagnosed with lung cancer.” As she explains, “The best time in history turned out to be conditioned by a combination of luck and privilege. If you have access to testing for these mutations, if your local government has approved the treatment, and if the meds work for you.”
With a terribly frightening diagnosis in hand, she joined a support group. “I rallied against the battling cancer metaphors and the exhortations to summon Herculean strength … ‘I’m already in a competitive business,’ I said. ‘My goal is to be an underachiever at cancer. Cancer warrior? Can’t I be a cancer slacker?’”
She also decided to carpe the diem, when possible, and traveled to Europe to sell merch for a heavy metal band that her new boyfriend was managing.
She contemplated the devotion to juicers that many cancer patients develop, writing, “Juicers are the Waterford crystal bowls for the newly diagnosed.”
When she was told it was her one year “cancerversary,” “What’s the one-year gift?” She asked. “Silver, diamonds, a bound leather commemorative copy of my medical records?”
She got involved in advocacy for cancer patients, and she wrote. “I began writing this book in the winter of 2020 with the publication of ‘The Coronavirus Saved My Life’ in the New York Times,” Gurwitch told me in a recent email exchange. “I had a chance to weave in themes I’d never written in depth about,” she added. “If any readers have read my satire in the New Yorker or my other books, ultimately, I can’t resist a comedic premise, and am currently developing the ‘I’m With the Band’ story (that was the trip to Europe to sell band merch) as a film.”
Gurwitch has been visiting the Vineyard for the past 10 or so years, and worked on her previous book, “You’re Leaving When?” on the Island. And with “The End of My Life Is Killing Me,” she hit send on the final version from the Vineyard last August.
A year later, the biomarker targeted therapy is still working, and she’s on a book tour, which she describes as “an improbable combination of comedy and talks at cancer centers.”
We are delighted that Annabelle Gurwitch will be speaking at Islanders Write on a panel with Cazzie David, moderated by Sarah Kernochan, on Thursday, July 16. She will also be at Edgartown Books signing on July 17 from 2 to 4 pm.