When Jean introduces me to people he says things like (imagine this in a posh South African accent, which for the uninitiated sounds like 19th century boarding school British) Her book is about growing up with seven different kinds of cancer!
I shake my head; he hasn’t read it so this synopsis is quite misleading. Then I patiently explain that it isn’t about cancer at all. The book is about danger.
Not the danger of growing up with a rare genetic disorder and two kinds of cancer. Not the peril implied by poverty and violence. Not the ramifications of a horrific accident, or any of the other sundry things that happened in my early life.
The book details all of those experiences, but it is about rejecting that legacy and choosing to take real risks – like falling in love, raising children, finding friends. From my perspective it is more dangerous to care about someone than it is to simply stay alive.