Reading <i>The Undying</i> felt in some ways like my own experience with cancer. In short, it was a cerebral, abstract and often painfully triggering roller coaster; which was, perhaps, Boyer’s intent. At times, her writing and philosophical knowledge was impressive, as was her ability to highlight parts of the breast cancer experience in ways that were all too familiar. However, other moments of reading had me frantically repeating one of my own cancer mantras: that’s not my story. Boyer’s experience is that of an American single parent with triple negative breast cancer - not one that I can relate to in its entirety.

In the end, much like the focus of the book’s second to last chapter, I felt exhausted and ready to be done with Boyer’s cancer recollections. This, of course, demonstrates the brilliance of her writing - the cancer experience is utterly exhausting, and once treatment is over, one simply wants to get back to some semblance of a life.

Unfortunately, for a metastatic cancer thriver, reading a cancer memoir is always risky for the impact it might have on a carefully constructed methodology for survival, and so, <i>The Undying</i> was definitely not for me. If you are looking for a hope-inducing cancer memoir, I would encourage you to look elsewhere; but it may still be of value for those immersed in the depressing and morbid vulnerability of triple negative breast cancer, ultimately helping them feel a bit less alone.

Thank you, NetGalley for the advance reader copy, and thank you, Anne for sharing your knowledge and your talent.

A curious cross-genre memoir of sorts, offering a curious look at illness and the state of medical care and systems available to those suffering.

I included The Undying in a round-up of the year's best innovative nonfiction at Book Riot: https://bookriot.com/2019/11/07/innovative-nonfiction-from-2019/

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Thank you NetGalley!

My apologies on the delay in the review.

Holy hell. This book was heartbreaking and beautiful. The writing style was absolutely stunning. This memoir will break your heart, But it is so so so worth it. Get this book. Now.

Anne Boyer describes the diagnosis, treatment, and aftermath of her triple negative breast cancer in The Undying, an urgent, furious, and gut-wrenching memoir in poetic essays. It is part literary criticism, reviewing the canon of literature about illness and cancer and interweaving those perspectives with her own, and part criticism of the cancer industry and the social, environmental, and personal impacts of cancer drugs and research trials and pink ribbons and empty promises and war metaphors.

I've read some breast cancer memoirs from quite privileged individuals: white, upper class women who have nannies and housekeepers and a very supportive and omnipresent husband. Anne is a white single mother who was diagnosed with breast cancer in her forties. She does not have a built-in caretaker of a partner or adult child, and cannot afford to take months off from work even as treatments are making her question if she’s even alive. She also does not shy away from statistics about the poor survival rates of black and low income women, and emphasizes the racial and economic barriers to cancer care.

I don’t know if I understood everything in this book, and I don’t think I’m supposed to. Anne writes, “nothing I’ve written here is for the well and intact, and had it been, I never would have written it.” But, it undoubtedly challenged my perspectives as a cancer genetic counselor, and has encouraged me to continue to approach my work with a critical eye. This should be added to a new canon of not only cancer memoirs, but of memoirs, period.

A beautiful and lyrically written memoir/essay regarding breast cancers impact on the lives of females and herself. Very good.

Poetic at times factual at others, The Undying was an emotional read. It is not a book I can say “I enjoyed” but I can say I learned from it, that I experienced growth because of it. It is not an easy book by any means, both because of its subject matter and because of its academic, but still feeling, approach to the topic. We hear about cancer nearly every day and for many of us it has already affected our lives either with our own diagnosis or with the diagnosis of a friend or family member. Anne Boyer equates breast cancer with almost normal womanhood as though one can only claim the fulness of womanhood through the diagnosis of breast cancer even as parts of their womanhood are so often stripped away. I did not expect the intense focus on breast cancer specifically, but it did not detract from the story.

This is a personal and academic look at what breast cancer is and at what it makes us. For survivors, this may be a good book, but for those still struggling it will be a very personal decision if they feel this is a book for them. There are quite a few reviews from the voices of people struggling with breast cancer, some who know they are terminal and for whom The Undying has been a difficult, but in some cases necessary, addition to their lives. The choice, as always, is up to the reader.

In The Undying, Anne Boyer says, “I have always wanted to write the most beautiful book against beauty.” As a poet, her choice of vocabulary and use of language as she writes about the horrors of breast cancer - not just the physical horrors but the societal and economic horrors - is so beautifully moving you won’t be able to put it down. I was flying last weekend and recommended the book to a woman sitting next to me who overheard me talking about it to my fiancé and asked about it because her friend is going through breast cancer treatment. I described the book to her as a “feminist examination of the business of breast cancer,” and it felt like the best description. Boyer’s book examines the oncology and pharmacology industries as they relate to breast cancer, including all of the cost, the racism, and the damage done by the breast cancer industrial complex. She also shares deeply personal insights about her own experiences and pain. The Undying is a must read for those who have had breast cancer touch their lives and those who haven’t alike.

This book left me emotionally exhausted. It is heartbreaking but I am so glad I got to read it. I would recommend it to everybody.

This tore at my heart.

In the vein of Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor, Boyer examines the illness industry in a critical light. Sometimes harrowing, sometimes uplifting, this is a must-read for anybody who has encountered the US health care system.

A lyrical and beautiful memoir of breast cancer. I hate calling it that, because it is also so much more. The author positions everything within the history of historical women with breast cancer, and the history of what it is/was to be a person with an illness or a sickness. Mythology is woven throughout as well. It's like reading an eloquent piece from a humanities professor about what it is to be human only it's all wrapped around her experience with breast cancer. A scathing indictment of our modern health care system where everything is about the money. She is simultaneously appreciative of the fact that she lives while horrified by chemotherapy drugs and questioning how this is how we are still doing things in the 21st century. I highly recommend it, but do expect a challenging read.

Note: I reserve 5 stars for books that are life changing for me. I am sure this book will achieve that for some readers.

Note: I received a free copy of this from NetGalley in exchange for my review.

A beautiful, moving, and fascinating look at cancer and the self, cancer and the body, cancer and the ways other thinkers, particularly women with breast cancer, have theorised and discussed and thought about it. Unsettling, but very, very clever and personal. I think it came close to home for me because as an academic, I too would start thinking through a diagnosis the way this book begins; with Sontag, with other such thinkers; would have similar worries to Boyer. Beautiful work.

"I do not want to tell the story of cancer in the way that I have been taught to tell it. The way I have been taught to tell the story is a person would be diagnosed, treated, either live or die. If she lives, she will be heroic. If she dies, she will be a plot point. If she lives, she will say something fierce, her fierceness applauded, or perform the absolutions of gratitude, her gratitude praised. . . . If this were a novel, a sick person would discover that she is a reincarnated version of Job, then find out that every other person alive is a reincarnated Job, too."

I'd give this 4.5 stars. In a nutshell, The Undying is like a less-accessible Argonauts, a mix of theory, poetry, and memoir. Overall, I loved it.

Beginning with a number of other female writers who've died of breast cancer--Audre Lorde, Susan Sontag, Eve Sedgwick, Rachel Carson--Boyer beautifully weaves so many threads together with her own experiences with triple-negative breast cancer. Among these threads:
- the stress of Googling your own diagnosis
- an inner/outer dichotomy: people perceive cancer as an individual, genetic disease rather than one borne of environmental factors in an industrialized world
- the narrative of "attitude is everything"--the idea that by individual will and correct choices and the right treatment, you can beat cancer.
- exploitative practices of people with breast cancer, from the Susan G. Komen Foundation to Pinktober to breast cancer fetish sites
- Aelius Aristides' desire for healing from the god Aesclepius, and his journey to record and follow his dreams of healing
- failures of language in every step of breast cancer, including the idea that pain is beyond language (for Boyer, it's not)
- networks of care as women-centered, nuclear family-centered, difficult work that conflicts with capitalist policies and systems
- the tension between homeopathic and bullshit "cures" for cancer and the debilitating, disabling, environmentally and bodily toxic chemo drugs that may work.


It's an ambitious book, a beautiful art object, and a compelling memoir. I highlighted sentence after sentence of gorgeous prose and frequently stopped to contemplate the individual pieces.

But.

I'd take 1/2 star off because, at times, the language becomes such a dense forest that I don't feel like I can make my way out of the individual sentences. Sentences like "If exhaustion as a subject has become newly popular it is because a once-proletarian feeling has now become a feeling of the proletarianized all" made me feel like I was back in grad school. Could I piece together the meaning, given enough time, effort, and brainpower? Sure, but I didn't always have the energy to do so. That being said, this book is under no obligation to be easily accessible to me, but at times these sentences felt at odds with the rest of the book, which does walk the tightrope of poetic memoir and theory.

Raw real open when Anne Boyer received the dreaded news that she had breast cancer her life as she knew it went into a spin.Anne a lyrical writer a poet shares with us her trip through chemo her losing her hair coping with people’s reactions.the side effects both emotional and physical.
Anne also takes us back in time to iconic women people like Susan Sontag her cancer diagnosis , to women far back in time who had mastectomies without anesthesia.
This is an emotional book a cry from Anne’s heart as she takes the path to ridding her body of cancer. a unique original important book .A book to be shared .to be given to those facing this diagnosis and for women to read and discuss. #netgalley #st.Martinsbooks.