Who in This Room

Description

Katherine Malmo is a Seattle-based mother, wife, and writer who was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer in 2005. These days she is cancer-free and blogs about adoption, race, health, and living a low-toxin life at www. hystericalmommynetwork.com. Her work has received the 2009 Goldberg Award for Fiction from the Bellevue Literary Review and the 2007 Pacific Northwest Writers Association Literary Contest’s award for Adult Short Story.

Reviews

“The musical precision of her words is felt in the body, cutting straight to the core. You emerge from Who in This Room as if from a vigorous swim, refreshed and more alive.” —Claire Fuqua Anderson, Shelf Awareness for Readers, Featured, Starred Review

“Katherine Malmo has written an unflinching, unsentimental, profoundly moving, wickedly funny (yes, I said funny) deeply courageous book detailing one woman’s diagnosis, treatment and recovery from inflammatory breast cancer. These stories are made of a fictioneer’s wit, a poet’s sensibility, a storyteller’s enthusiasm and a survivor’s heart. They have the power to reconnect us to that part of ourselves we need when anything bad happens, that gritty, humored, resilient, unspeakably beautiful spark in the center of each of us that knows only how to lock its jaws and hang on.” —Pam Houston, author of Contents May Have Shifted

“This moving, courageous, honest, and beautifully written account is not about the life of a cancer survivor, but rather of a life defined by living.  It was a privilege to read it.” —Nancy Pearl, NPR commentator and author of Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason

“The kind and clear gift of this lovingly rendered book is not only about surviving cancer, but also that the unwelcome, terrible, and questionably survivable tragedies that visit every human life must not only be faced and handled, but lived.” —Lisa Romeo, ForeWord Reviews

“It’s pretty easy now for breast cancer stories to be swathed in pink, to be about survival and triumph, to have an easily identifiable arc. Katherine’s book is like flint, like hard rock on frozen water. There’s no sentimentality here. But there’s no self-pity and wallowing in the details either. It’s even funny in some parts. It’s clear and strong and utterly horrifying. It’s art, not a memoir.” —Shauna Ahern, Gluten Free Girl and The Chef