Pantheon Books | 2009 | 224 pages | List price: $16.95 | Get it for less at Amazon

Cartoonist Marisa Acocella Marchetto’s award winning 2006 graphic novel, CANCER VIXEN, will be released in paperback on September 29th, just in time to kick off breast cancer awareness month in October. In 2004, Acocella Marchetto, a cartoonist whose work has been featured in “The New Yorker” and “Glamour,” had her world turned completely upside down when she found a lump in one of her breasts. Following her first mammogram at age 43, and a painful biopsy, she was unfortunately diagnosed with breast cancer. CANCER VIXEN chronicles her story throughout the entire process, from diagnosis, to surgery, to her chemotherapy, while giving the reader a glimpse into her personal, intimate world and the relationships in her life from which she drew support. Told with an unwavering honesty, CANCER VIXEN engages the reader from the onset and completely immerses them within Acocella Marchetto’s world, at times exceptionally emotional, at others, light hearted. What is found though at the very core of CANCER VIXEN is that which is most important, to live a life fully realized based completely within an unadulterated passion, and it is this permeance of love that exists on the subtextual level of the book that makes Acocella Marchetto’s book so incredibly powerful.

Central to Acocella Marchetto’s story is how the diagnosis of cancer came just when everything seemed to be going so splendidly in her life. She had sold some cartoons to “The New Yorker,” had just become engaged to one of New York’s most successful restauranteurs, Silvano Marchetto, and was contently enveloped in her fashionista world. After the diagnosis though, Acocella Marchetto immediately began worrying about what would happen with her engagement to Silvano, if he would leave her for one of the rail thin models that frequented his restaurant, if he would no longer find her attractive if she lost her hair from the chemo, or simply if he would not want to deal with all of the turmoil that would inevitably arise from her battle with cancer. Silvano though never left her side, and as he is depicted in the book, is never without anything but such a pure and radiant love for his now wife. This is one of the most beautifully warming aspects of the book, showing that once any guise of superficiality is stripped away so that the absolute essence of the individual is exposed, then one can truly love. Silvano and Acocella Marchetto never share any overly wrought emotional scenes within CANCER VIXEN, but rather are presented in very tender moments that brightly illustrate the love that they have for one another.

In one instance, Acocella Marchetto illustrates her and Silvano’s love by depicting it as a great black and white send up of the Italian classic LA DOLCE VITA in a two page spread that features an opening panel of composer Nino Rota beginning his score to play in the readers’ minds. This is one of many scenes that completely convey Acochella Marchetto’s brilliance as a cartoonist, for her panels are all wildly imaginative, featuring such items as characters with nuclear reactor heads who are about to explode, the gossip circle relegated to being nothing more than faces on a bunch of sour grapes, or in one of the funnier moments in the graphic novel, the “flat on the front and flat on the back” models in Silvano’s restaurant being transformed into a group of walking Gumby figures. These fantastical elements blend perfectly with the reality of other panels, and help establish a tone that defines the entire work. Acocella Marchetto’s art is not only beautifully done, but it serves to propel the memoir forward while conveying the emotionality of the experience. The reader will at times wince with the pain that Acocella Marchetto is going through and will at other times laugh with her at the absurdity of some of the situations. In a scene where the grown Acochella Marchetto goes to speak to her mother and suddenly becomes a little girl, standing there peering nervously up at her larger than life mom, the reader will in an instant feel the utter helplessness of the situation and will completely see the power of the brilliantly designed panels.

It is without a doubt though that the complete and brutal honesty Acocella Marchetto writes and draws with is what makes CANCER VIXEN so unique. Nothing is candy coated, nothing is held back. She never once paints herself as a saint or as someone that one should pity. She shows her friends lecturing her for not having medical insurance, she shows her fear with watching the world as she knows it forever change and she shows herself at her most vulnerable and most unflattering. She keeps a sense of humor though, commenting along the way at which of the hospitals have the best looking gowns, which shoes she wears to each chemo treatment and envisioning the cancer cells in her bodies as green faced monsters flipping her the bird. With the honesty though comes a very key component of the book, and that is how beautifully it raises awareness without ever becoming mired down in merely being preachy or didactic. By exposing herself and her own personal ordeal in a format that allows the reader to travel with her through a set period of time and experience the same highs and lows that she is going through, Acocella Marchetto becomes someone who says, “here I am, complete with strengths and flaws, and this is how I dealt with my situation.” This puts her own personal battle out in the open, without any veils to hide it, to allow others to learn from, and ultimately, to inspire them to take action in regard to their own personal well-being.

CANCER VIXEN is in the end, incredibly inspirational from its amazing authenticity. It honestly should be read by everyone, and then given as gifts to loved ones. It is that good and is that important.

With the paperback release, Acocella Marchetto will be donating a portion of the proceeds to provide breast care for underprivileged women at the Comprehensive Cancer Center affiliated with St. Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan and to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

CANCER VIXEN will be released on September 29th. To pre-order it directly from Amazon for less, CLICK HERE.

Marisa Acocella Marchetto has also set up the Cancer Vixen Fund at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York City to provide free mammograms to women without health insurance. To learn more about the fund, please visit: www.marisaacocellamarchetto.com/

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