The novel is set in 1967 and 1968, first in Mobile, Alabama and then at Indiana University in Bloomington. However, the story is in no way a 1960s political novel. Vietnam barely gets mentioned. The themes are infidelity, sibling rivalry, deception, self-deception, separation, and miscommunication.

The two main characters are Elizabeth Nye, a 20-year-old German major, and Brian Petersen, the 27-year-old history teaching assistant with whom she has a five-week affair while she's temporarily separated from her liberal-minded fiancé, Alan Abrams.

Elizabeth is dishonest and selfish while Brian is naive and idealistic, but virtually no one in this story is either all good or all bad. That's what makes them people rather than stereotypes.

Minor and cameo characters include Elizabeth's self-indulgent academic father, her sexy younger sister, a not-so-merry widowed neighbor, Brian's excessively beloved older sister, his pined-after lost love, that woman's life-hardened lesbian roommate, and a gay friend of Elizabeth's.

The narrative technique involves the use of several different points of view. A given scene may allow the reader to see the same action from starkly contrasting points of view. This reinforces the overarching theme of the book, which is the unending difficulty of human communication.

A play in one act, in which the transparent characters – Glenn, Glenda, Gladwin, and Glennis Glass – offer their opinions on such weighty philosophical matters as being half full or half empty, accepting oneself as one comes from the Great Factory, the restricted lives of their costlier neighbors in the locked china cabinet, the fate of an unfortunate cousin with a glass jaw, and much more.

More than 100,000 American women undergo mastectomy and breast reconstruction every year because of breast cancer. Thousands more are having double mastectomies to prevent it. So much has been written about breast cancer, and so much overlooks the reality of reconstruction when a woman has a mastectomy and opts for this process. It is difficult, painful, and traumatizing at times. Most women do not emerge with a new set of breasts and nipples in a single operation. Breast reconstruction usually takes months and can take years to finish. Some women never do, living without nipples or with imperfect results. Others opt not to have reconstruction at all. Still others struggle with one of the biggest women’s health questions today: lumpectomy and radiation or mastectomy?

Breast Cancer Surgery and Reconstruction offers a glimpse into the big picture of the various stages and types of breast reconstruction using stories and photos of real women. It offers a true picture of what breast reconstruction entails, and offers hope to those facing it. This is a book to help women with a variety of issues surrounding their choices, with powerful insights from women who have been there.

You are Not Alone: Life After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis, empowers women with easy to understand, vital information to guide them through their breast cancer experience.  It helps women become aware of their options while giving them the confidence, hope, inspiration, and skills to make the right treatment decisions.  Along with valuable research, Andrea candidly shares her personal experiences, including her thoughts and feelings, from the time of her breast cancer diagnosis to having her breasts removed and reconstructed. 

 

This book will save you countless hours of research while offering you information relatively unknown by most women. 

Discussions include:

· Factors which may contribute to breast cancer.

· Tests such as HALO-NAF and the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation test.

· Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT).

· What it means to have breasts sensitive to estrogen.

· Statistics you must know if you are diagnosed with breast cancer during or soon after pregnancy.

· Treatment options and pointers on how to make the right treatment choice.

· Questions to ask your doctor.  (If you don't ask the right question, you won't get the right answer.)

You are Not Alone: Life After a Breast Cancer Diagnosis can benefit all women as it shares what our doctors aren't telling us yet we must know to make critical decisions. 

 

Our lives are at stake.

2015 ALA Notable Book Would you cut out your healthy breasts and ovaries if you thought it might save your life? That's not a theoretical question for journalist Lizzie Stark's relatives, who grapple with the horrific legacy of cancer built into the family DNA, a BRCA mutation that has robbed most of her female relatives of breasts, ovaries, peace of mind, or life itself. In Pandora's DNA, Stark uses her family's experience to frame a larger story about the so-called breast cancer genes, exploring the morass of legal quandaries, scientific developments, medical breakthroughs, and ethical concerns that surround the BRCA mutations, from the troubling history of prophylactic surgery and the storied origins of the boob job to the landmark lawsuit against Myriad Genetics, which held patents on the BRCA genes every human carries in their body until the Supreme Court overturned them in 2013. Although a genetic test for cancer risk may sound like the height of scientific development, the treatment remains crude and barbaric. Through her own experience, Stark shows what it's like to live in a brave new world where gazing into a crystal ball of genetics has many unintended consequences.

Approximately 44% of women with breast cancer treat it with a lumpectomy and radiation therapy. The medical advice in this resource answers many of the questions these women and their families face in treatment choices. Topics include how a lumpectomy is performed, what to expect from radiation treatment, and where to find the emotional support needed during this time. Recovery plans that include exercise, nutrition, and ongoing treatment are provided.

2.5 million women in the U.S. have had a breast cancer diagnosis; more than 200,000 women are diagnosed each year. While recovery and survival rates have improved, selecting a treatment plan can be confusing and overwhelming.

Breast Cancer: 50 Essential Things You Can Do offers a roadmap for women facing breast cancer. Cancer-survivor Greg Anderson, a recognized pioneer in the field of integrated cancer care, has guided tens-of-thousands of cancer patients to health and healing over the past 25 years, through his books and his Cancer Recovery Foundation. In this new book he offers critical information about the major issues patients face following a breast cancer diagnosis, and shows how to implement a comprehensive recovery plan that maximizes opportunity for healing and recovery.

This is a fully integrative approach--one that questions Western medicine’s tendency to overtreat and proposes a combination of nutrition, exercise, mind/body approaches, and social support along with conventional medical care.

Breast Cancer: 50 Essential Things You Can Do shows how to get well and stay well by:
--Understanding your diagnosis
--Determining your treatment
--Managing your medical care
--Transforming your diet
--Designing a vitamin and mineral supplement program
--Minimizing toxic exposure, implementing an exercise program, and getting enough sleep
--Creating physical, emotional and spiritual health

This is a life-saving guide for anyone with breast cancer--whether it’s a new diagnosis or a recurrence--to become fully engaged in her own health and healing.

 One in eight American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetimes—over 246,000 women in 2016 alone.  That means one in three Americans will be a breast cancer caregiver for their wife, partner, mother, daughter, or sister (and that doesn’t count their friends or coworkers). There hasn’t been a comprehensive, step-by-step guide for caregivers to help their loved ones through beast cancer - until now – with  Stand By Her: A Breast Cancer Guide For Loved Ones.

Author Jack Anderson was a caregiver to four women in his life who went through breast cancer. It was then that he realized that all his experiences, combined with the journeys of other caregivers through “Cancer Land,” needed to be told. So he wrote Stand by Her: A Breast Cancer Guide for Loved Ones, which talks directly to caregivers, and offers strategies and support on the countless minefields they will face, every day, as husbands, partners, daughters, sons, sisters, brother, mothers, fathers, nieces, nephews, friends, and coworkers of breast cancer patients before, during, and after her treatment. 

Throughout the book, Anderson combines his own personal stories with accounts from other caregivers, along with detailed advice from experts who address all the medical, emotional, physical, psychological, family relationship, sexual, and financial issues.  Each chapter focuses on each stage of the breast cancer process, framed with its own unique color, to symbolize what the reader and their loved one are going through.  

 When a loved one has cancer, family and friends are at a loss about what to do and how to do it, and are left with all the best of intentions and nowhere to go. Stand by Her fills that gap and is a great go-to resource for anyone who has a loved one facing a cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Penny Damaskos, PhD, LCSW, OSW-C
Director, Department of Social Work 
Director
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

I have read dozens of books on breast cancer and written one myself, but Stand by Her is unique, written by a man who has helped four separate women deal with their breast cancer experiences. It goes without saying that caregivers and loved ones should go out and "Stand by Her."
Barron H. Lerner, MD, PhD
Professor of Medicine, NYU and author of The Breast Cancer Wars

Jack Anderson offers invaluable perspective on how breast cancer becomes a family journey. An incredible resource for all who have been touched by breast cancer.
Dr Holly Phillips, MD, General Internist, NY, NY 

The novel is set in 1967 and 1968, first in Mobile, Alabama and then at Indiana University in Bloomington. However, the story is in no way a 1960s political novel. Vietnam barely gets mentioned. The themes are infidelity, sibling rivalry, deception, self-deception, separation, and miscommunication.

The two main characters are Elizabeth Nye, a 20-year-old German major, and Brian Petersen, the 27-year-old history teaching assistant with whom she has a five-week affair while she's temporarily separated from her liberal-minded fiancé, Alan Abrams.

Elizabeth is dishonest and selfish while Brian is naive and idealistic, but virtually no one in this story is either all good or all bad. That's what makes them people rather than stereotypes.

Minor and cameo characters include Elizabeth's self-indulgent academic father, her sexy younger sister, a not-so-merry widowed neighbor, Brian's excessively beloved older sister, his pined-after lost love, that woman's life-hardened lesbian roommate, and a gay friend of Elizabeth's.

The narrative technique involves the use of several different points of view. A given scene may allow the reader to see the same action from starkly contrasting points of view. This reinforces the overarching theme of the book, which is the unending difficulty of human communication.

A play in one act, in which the transparent characters – Glenn, Glenda, Gladwin, and Glennis Glass – offer their opinions on such weighty philosophical matters as being half full or half empty, accepting oneself as one comes from the Great Factory, the restricted lives of their costlier neighbors in the locked china cabinet, the fate of an unfortunate cousin with a glass jaw, and much more.