Mary Dunnewold

A Fun Cancer Tale — Really!
Reviewed by Erin Michaela Sweeney

A breast cancer memoir wouldn’t seem like a lighthearted read. Yet Mary Dunnewold’s Fine, Thanks: Stories from the Cancerland Jungle (Black Rose Writing, 2019) really is fun. Let me explain.

As a voracious reader who happens to be a cancer survivor (blood, not breast — eyes up, fellas), I’ve dipped into books about the Big C before. Fine, Thanks was not the first cancer memoir or even breast cancer memoir I’ve read. And it probably won’t be the last. But Dunnewold’s book just might be the best cancer memoir I’ve ever encountered.

Usually, these stories fall into one of three categories:
1. Autopathographies, where creatives and celebrities write about how cancer affects their work. To find out more, see Jeffrey K. Aronson, “Autopathographies: The Patient’s Tale,” British Medical Journal (Clinical Research Ed.).
2. Illness memoirs, where authors, who are sometimes first-time writers, share their traumatic experiences in a somber and serious (and sometimes spiritual) but relatable way to help others. For a gloss, see Nick Duerden, “What Can We Learn About Our Wellbeing from Memoirs of Ill Health?” The Guardian, Mar. 23, 2018.
3. Other; Or, Miscellaneous, where the square peg doesn’t fit in the round hole. Graphic Medicine narratives — which I love — fall into this Other because of their visual form. Books that tie into expensive programs and/or costly supplements that sell false hope — which I loathe — are the Miscellaneous to avoid. See Science-Based Medicine and other reputable websites that disprove quack claims. Some self-published cancer stories — which still need some spit-and-shine — land here as well.

Fine, Thanks is in a separate category.

Dunnewold writes about how cancer affected her roles as a law professor, wife, and mother of a young-adult son and teenage daughter. She also dives into how her connections with extended family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, and others changed during the 18 months in cancerland. Most of all, though, she shares her evolving view of her slice of the world with a strange and wonderful sense of humor.

She makes cancer funny. When she writes about her strategy for sharing her diagnosis, which involves placing people in tiers, Dunnewold wonders what would happen if she sees someone in Target whom she hasn’t yet notified.

"But then there are the people you run into who clearly don’t know… These people bring the cart to a complete stop, put on a friendly smile, and say, I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you?! You look great!

"Fine? Or not fine? That is the question.

"If you choose fine, then later, when they find out you were in fact not fine, they will feel foolish and terrible, and it will be your fault. If you choose not fine and deliver the news right there, they will feel foolish and terrible in the middle of Target, and it will be your fault.

"If only Miss Manners would weigh in."

As a native Minnesotan, Dunnewold seamlessly weaves the state into her commentary, almost like it’s another person.

"Maybe because I am fortunate enough to live in Minnesota, a state that offers some of the best health care in the world, and I have Cadillac insurance that allows me to go anywhere I want for treatment. But the difference between evaluating doctors and evaluating nurses is kind of like the difference between buying a car and buying a bed."

I won’t quote her reasoning here, but it’s oh so true. And funny.

Dunnewold is not above making fun of herself. She takes pride in knowing all the minutia of her medical history, which she recites from memory when prompted.

"There is a reason why, among all the commercial cancer junk on the market out there, you can buy a button that says ‘nurses favorite.’ (Yes, the one I was given is missing the apostrophe, because when it comes to cancer, all rules, even grammatical ones, are suspended.)"

Not all of Fine, Thanks is a joke, of course. When Dunnewold pauses to contemplate, her prose is lyrical.

"There is a moment when you pass through the threshold, the gossamer curtain, the liminal ectoplasm, from not having cancer to having cancer."

She chooses her words with care.

Another aspect of her carefulness is the way in which Dunnewold makes plain her circumstances. As she reviews an insurance letter stating that an optional test would indeed be covered,

"the financial and practical reality of cancer treatment hit me. And I wondered… How do people cope? Wouldn’t financial insecurity and family stress make cancer a hundred times worse?

"I haven’t lived that story, so I can only guess at the answers. I can only tell my own story — about how I coped. But in telling my story, I am acutely aware of the privilege, financial and otherwise, that cushioned my life during cancer. In addition to excellent health insurance, I had a supportive family, a flexible job, and access to the best health care in the world."

Dunnewold finds a balance of serious and not-so-serious when elaborating on procedures and processes involved in her world of cancer. Though I’m sure she’s got a large vocabulary, she uses straightforward, informal language. Dunnewold conveys lots of sensory details about tests and surgeries, making the medical anything but mundane.

During a follow-up cancer screening, at one point a healthcare worker said,

"You have very active breasts.

"I thought: Maybe in high school. But if you want to know the truth, they have not been all that active in the last few years, peri-menopause, work stress, teenagers in the house, and all. But that’s middle age for you.

"Then I thought: Very active breasts? What the hell?

"What they meant: I had cancer everywhere [they biopsied]."

I don’t recall reading another example of a memoirist that poked fun at learning she went from Stage 1 to Stage 3 cancer.

Though it feels mean-spirited, I’d be remiss to overlook one teeny flaw. The book’s cover photo features a plank path through woods, perhaps from one of the Minnesota state parks Dunnewold and her husband had hiked. But the subtitle reads Stories from the Cancerland Jungle, and Dunnewold makes only one allusion to hacking through a jungle in the entire memoir. Jungles and woods aren’t the same. Why not just drop the jungle mention to have it Stories from Cancerland? (Oh my goodness, how nitpicky.)

Mary Dunnewold’s weird and witty mind on display in Fine, Thanks is a gift for all readers.

* I received a free ebook of Fine, Thanks as a LibraryThing Early Reviewer member in exchange for an unbiased review.

(Also posted on GoodReads)… (altro)

My very first surprise takeaway from reading Fine, Thanks is how calm and pragmatic Mary is while describing her relationship with breast cancer. How is this possible when she went went a healthy mammogram to a "cancer everywhere" magnetic resonance image less than a year later? From discovery, treatment, and recovery there is a smattering of humor, a touch of sarcasm, more than a healthy strain of emotional bravery, and yes, to be expected, anger. For the most part, she is detailed and detached in such a way that a reader can relate in the abstract if he or she has never experienced breast cancer, or nod knowingly if it has been a nightmare reality. I have to wonder how many people diagnosed with any stage of breast cancer have whispered a sage yesyesyes at every truthful, clear-headed, powerful sentence Dunnewold wrote? Even when she points out the obvious I found myself making note of my emphatic agreement. For example, it is common sense that people would pay more attention to something when it relates to them directly. The greater the relationship the more one is willing and apt to sit up and take notice. But when Dunnewold points that out it becomes something different. Yes. She writes like a storytelling river; at times a crashing torrent of yelling words and roiling feelings. At other times her words are a gentle trickle of quiet and graceful acceptance.
Confessional: My favorite moment was not the height of her bravery during diagnosis or even treatment, but rather when she ended her search for religion. Odd as that may seem, it's true. Her viewpoint awoke something deep within me. Not in the jolting sense of an abrupt aha moment. there was no visible lightning strike. But rather in the slow dawning of discovery; the way that a patch of sunlight plods across the carpet illuminating a slight discoloration in the pile never noticed before. A subtle stain. Oh. Ohhhh...now I see. There were a few of those moments.
Second favorite part - the laugh out loud moment or as I call it, the "snort coffee out the nose" moment was when Dunnewold described the "unanticipated side effect of cancer" in conjunction with pie crust. She owes me a cup of coffee.
As an aside, what is it about animals? I was f.i.n.e. with the ending of Fine, Thanks. I could close the book with a sigh of satisfaction...until I got to the epilogue. Having just helped my sister adopt a dog named Rubie...ugh.… (altro)

DISCLOSURE: An electronic copy of this book was provided for review by the publisher, Black Rose Writing, via Library Thing.

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Thoughtful and literate, Mary Dunnewold’s “Fine, Thanks” tracks the author’s two-year journey through breast cancer diagnosis, treatment, and complications with unblinking honesty and even a few rare moments of humor.

Every year in the U.S., roughly one person in every 200 will receive a cancer diagnosis. It’s almost certain that the reader, or a member of the reader’s extended family, or a friend will, at some past or future date, be among them. Cancer may be, among the general population, one of the most feared diseases extant, even though early diagnosis and advances in treatment options continue to push survival rates upward.

Intelligent and well-educated, Dunnewold’s biggest challenge, initially, was simply to accept help from family and friends. The circumstances of her life had created a competent, capable woman whose default setting was “I can do this myself, thank you.” Realizing that she didn’t have to – that even if going it alone was a possibility, her life and the lives of her family would be less complicated if she accepted the help that was offered, was a huge step toward coming through the treatment and its aftermath.

Dunnewold doesn’t flinch, doesn’t look away, and doesn’t allow the reader to look away as she undergoes a bilateral mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and a series of reconstructive procedures that turn out to be almost as problematical as the initial surgery. Through it all, she attempts to juggle self-care, professional responsibility, and the needs of her family. Supported by a spouse who is, frankly, a candidate for sainthood, Dunnewold traverses the peaks and valleys of a recovery period which at times seems worse than the original disease.

The reader who has a personal cancer history will undoubtedly recognize many of their own struggles, their own attitudes, and their own coping mechanisms in these pages; the reader who has a loved one embarking on this journey will find a depth of understanding that may help both patient and loved one make the perilous trek through that dark valley.… (altro)