Bald in the Land of Big Hair: A True Story

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
When Joni Rodgers gazed at her post-chemo face, she noticed a change. "That wasn't me.... It was...Emil Lonnquist! My paternal grandfather, fresh off the boat from Sweden." With horror and humor, Joni greets her post-diagnosis reflection -- and with the same witty dismay, she shares her story in Bald in the Land of Big Hair. It's a story about surviving cancer's many traumas: not only its shock and sorrow but its irritations and embarrassments, too.

Joni's treatment for non-Hodgkins lymphoma led her from surgery through an aggressive course of chemotherapy drugs. At first, Joni rejected the nightmare of chemo: "I tried to listen, but didn't feel like I was absorbing much as [Dr. Ro] laid out the gruesome possibilities in clinical nomenclature, couching blunt realities like 'barfing' and 'agony' in palatable terms like 'nausea' and 'discomfort.' " Ultimately, however, Joni's warm, goofy husband, Gary, encouraged her to accept her doctor's suggestion. With this decision came life -- and the death of a thousand small vanities.

The first of these, of course, was Joni's hair. And in Joni's home state of Texas, small hair is no small matter. "It's not much fun being a bald girl in the Big Hair Capital of America," Joni notes dryly. "A true Texan woman cruises down the aisle at Mervyn's like the Snoopy balloon in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade; that bouffant would lift her right off the ground if her six children didn't have her tethered by the hand." Joni admits to the distress and shame that accompany hair loss, but with her straight-up humor she puts it in perspective. "I used to hate my hair because it was so ordinary, and I hadn't yet learned the value of ordinary things. I was so busy striving to be exceptional, I missed the dance of the everyday, the red-brown grace of the gloriously mundane."

Joni allows us to share in her experience of the full chemotherapy course: She describes how her favorite sex acts were affected by drugs, how her children coped with her paralyzing and often inexplicable disease, how her faith wavered and reasserted itself. "I'd always given away my time and efforts as easily as an old lady offers knickknacks at a yard sale, asking little and accepting even less.... Now, for the first time in my life, my life was at the top of my agenda." Joni's story offers readers an honest look at surviving cancer, and a new perspective on life's small matters. (Jesse Gale)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Texas is big. Dang big. Big meat, big hats, and big, big, hair. Texas women have hair so big it gives Texas honeybees beehive envy. What's a girl to do when, thanks to chemotherapy, she has to battle cancer without even her god-given right of Big Hair? If you're Joni Rodgers, you use humor, candor, anger, and finally, grace and dignity (sprinkled with healthy doses of sex and Jell-o®). Funny, moving, and inspiring, Bald in the Land of Big Hair is a tribute to the triumph of the human spirit, the importance of community, an the imperative of living each day with joy and grace. And a darn good wig.

About the Author:Joni Rodgers is the author of two novels and many articles, and has appeared as a keynote speaker for the Lymphoma Research Foundation, the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship, CanCare, and other conference and benefit audiences nationwide. She lives with her family near Houston, TX.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

At first blush, a lighthearted romp through the horrors of chemotherapy seems like a stretch. Yet that is just what Rodgers has attempted with considerable success in this memoir of her bout with cancer. Even Rodgers admits, "I didn't find cancer all that funny, especially at the time." Then why the comic touch? If her previous novels--Crazy for Trying (1996) and Sugar Land (1999)--are any indication, she delights in creating over-the-top characters whose idiosyncrasies highlight the world's absurdities. And nothing is quite so existentially absurd as a reminder that you are about to die: "You stop living and start staying alive." The comic tone enables Rodgers to render the ordeal without monochromatic grimness. While essentially a story about cancer and its implications, the vehicle is Rodgers herself. She portrays herself as a rebellious, somewhat loopy woman who, almost despite herself, managed to find professional success, marry a good husband and have two kids. Into this setting comes an intruder in the form of a lump in her neck and a puzzling loss of energy: she has a virulent lymphoma that requires aggressive treatment, including chemotherapy. While Rodgers's attempt to convey serious business lightly is commendable, the constant wisecracking keeps the reader at an emotional distance. And when she does turn serious, the insights are pedestrian: "Truly, I promise you, grace is real, God is here, and in the end, everything is going to be all right." Fortunately, Rodgers survived her ordeal. The memoir that sprang from it, though, is stronger on anecdote than insight. Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Librarians don't need to buy this first-person cancer narrative, but they'll probably want to. Rodgers, a novelist (Crazy for Trying), actress, and radio DJ living in Houston ("the Land of Big Hair"), discusses being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in her early thirties. She covers the confusion of diagnosis, the horrors of chemotherapy, and, finally, the uncertainty of remission. Rodgers tells her story with wit and clarity. It's not an aggressively sad story--in fact, much of it is funny--but there are moments with her daughter, husband, and mother that are heartbreaking. Her free-spirited life is interesting, even without the cancer stories, and the reader is drawn into her relationships. There are many other cancer-survivor books, but this one stands out for its appeal to general biography readers. Recommended for public and consumer health libraries, particularly in Texas.--Elizabeth Williams, Fresno City Coll. Lib., CA Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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