There is a longstanding Jewish tradition of speaking of illness and death in hushed tones. When the tragedy belongs to us, we tend to circle around the topic. And when it belongs to someone else, we sometimes lower the volume of the conversation, lest we invite the mere possibility of illness and death. By and large, we become masters of avoidance. There is no peeking behind the curtain of the chemo room, let alone opening a door to witness (or recall) the indignities of tragedy head on.
Gila Pfeffer turns the tables on all this. In her debut memoir, Nearly Departed, she conjures the ghosts of not just one cancer but three: the one that killed her mother when Pfeffer was only twenty, the one that took her father a few years later, and the one she tried to outrun by getting a preventive double mastectomy at age thirty-four — only to find out that it was already present in her breast.
Jewish tradition also carries a second, arguably stronger strategy for dealing with death and illness: injecting it with humor. Pfeffer opts for this tactic, arming herself with comedy and sarcasm to share with readers her “adventures in loss, cancer and other inconveniences.”
Laughter is there not only to soften the blow, but also to allow Pfeffer to shape her personal history into a highly entertaining tale. We chuckle at her mishaps in dating, nod our heads at her father’s sayings, share her shock at her unusual biopsy results, and grimace (and half laugh) at callous comments from well-meaning strangers. Despite the pileup of her misfortunes, Pfeffer keeps the tone light throughout. She does so by using unconventional narrative devices and by including a wide range of pop-culture references, such as Doogie Howser, ER’s Dr. McDreamy, Beyonce, the Spice Girls, Kung Fu Panda, and The Terminator.
In this way, Pfeffer takes tragedy off its pedestal of pity, gossip, and clucking tongues, stripping it of much of its power. The curtain is indeed peeled back to show some of the gory details: the bright red chemotherapy infusions, the upset stomachs, and the thundering sound of falling eyelashes. But the memoir, far from a horror story, reads like a heart-to-heart chat between friends.
