The Brand New Catastrophe
A Memoir
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
“A very funny [memoir] about the frailties of the flesh, the absurdities of modern medicine, and how to stay sane amid it all” (Dave Eggers).
Raucous family memoir meets medical adventure in this “winning literary debut” that explores the public and private theaters of illness (The New York Times Book Review).
After a pituitary tumor bursts in Mike Scalise’s brain (diagnosed, by of all people a physician named Dr. Sunshine), it leaves him with a hole in head, and the hormone disorder acromegaly at age twenty-four. He also faces the exasperating challenge of navigating a new, alien world of illness maintenance among family, friends, and spouse. However, it’s his mother, who has a chronic heart condition and a flair for drama, who becomes a complicated model as she competes with her son for the status of “best sick person.”
“Captur[ing] all the fright of a medical calamity and the humor and grace necessary to survive it (Kirkus Reviews), “Mike Scalise’s startling and slyly hilarious memoir is a heartfelt reminder of how astonishing, how terrifying, how absurd it is to be a body. An essential book for those who’ve lived through catastrophe, or only imagined it” (Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine).
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scalise, who has written for the Paris Review and Agni, delivers an offbeat, witty memoir about his life after discovering that he has a brain tumor related to acromegaly, a hormone disorder that causes gigantism. Scalise is unsparing in recounting his reaction to his diagnosis ("You learn at once that you've been placed on a very particular spectrum of ugly") while keeping the reader engaged in a story about catastrophe: "Focus on the oddities and ironies that would seem incredible and ridiculous in any context, not just that of your disaster." In between descriptions of his various hospital visits and operation, he presents how his illness affected his relationships with his "universe of loved ones, friends and acquaintances, all pulled into a troubled orbit around the busted person at its core." The most memorable characters are his girlfriend, who helps him deal with tumor-related testosterone issues, and his mother, who suffers her own chronic cardiac problems. He also looks at acromegaly in a broader social context, such as how it affected a number of Hollywood actors including Andr the Giant. But the heart of Scalise's sensitive and well-written memoir is his depiction of how he dealt with his illness personally, especially the "complicated role-play" of "becoming infatuated with your own defense mechanisms."
