The Summer of Her Baldness : : A Cancer Improvisation / / Catherine Lord.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Lord, Catherine,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2004
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Constructs Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (247 p.)

"No eyebrows. No eyelashes. When it rains the water will run straight down into my eyes," Catherine Lord wrote before her hair fell out during chemotherapy. Propelled into an involuntary performance piece occasioned by the diagnosis of breast cancer, Lord adopted the online persona of Her Baldness—an irascible, witty, polemical presence who speaks candidly about shame and fear to her listserv audience. While Lord suffers from unwanted isolation and loss of control as her treatment progresses, Her Baldness talks back to the society that stigmatizes bald women, not to mention middle-aged lesbians with a life-threatening disease. In this irreverent and moving memoir, Lord draws on the e-mail correspondence of Her Baldness to offer an unconventional look at life with breast cancer and the societal space occupied by the seriously ill. She photographs herself and the rooms in which she negotiates her disease. She details the clash of personalities in support groups, her ambivalence about Western medicine, her struggles to maintain her relationship with her partner, and her bemusement when she is mistaken for a "sir." She uses these experiences—common to the one-in-eight women who will be diagnosed at some point with breast cancer—to illuminate larger issues of gender signifiers, sexuality, and the construction of community.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- JUNE 2001 (Looking Backward: Confessions of Her Baldness) -- MAY/JUNE 2000 -- JULY 2000 -- AUGUST 2000 -- SEPTEMBER 2000 -- OCTOBER 2000 -- NOVEMBER 2000 -- DECEMBER 2000 -- JANUARY 2001 -- FEBRUARY 2001 -- MARCH 2001 -- APRIL 2001 -- MAY 2001 -- FEBRUARY 2003 (A Letter to Her Baldness)