First, You Cry, excerpt from

Rollin, Betty

Primary Category: Literature / Nonfiction

Squier, Harriet

Date of entry: Nov-18-2001
Last revised: Aug-21-2006

Summary

In First, You Cry, an autobiography by Betty Rollin, a well-to-do television broadcaster adjusts to the loss of a breast from cancer. The author uses humor to deal with and recount her loss as well as her anger, as she slowly begins to adjust. This excerpt deals with the author’s fixation on finding the right breast prosthesis.

Commentary

This piece raises issues about the grief process as well as about women’s self image. It also shows that the response to cancer is not simply a medical weighing of life expectancies and recurrence probabilities. It involves maintaining one’s life and profession as best one can, despite radical changes in self-image and outward appearance. A highly relevant Web site about and by artist-model Matuschka, http://www.songster.net/projects/matuschka/, has been annotated in the art section of this database ( Matuschka Archive).

Primary Source

Ordinary Lives: Voices of Disability and Disease

Publisher

Applewood

Place Published

Cambridge, Mass.

Edition

1982

Editor

Irving Kenneth Zola