I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse?: An Illustrated Memoir FROM THE PUBLISHER
For years Suzy Becker, author of The New York Times bestseller All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat (1.7 million copies in print), literally lived by her wits-her imagination, intelligence, ideas, passion. During much of that time she was also suffering seizures. But they came secretly in the middle of the night, and were probably stress-related, or so one doctor said. Then a seizure (and a second opinion) led to a round of specialists, Cat scans, MRIs, and-Suzy's worst fears come true-brain surgery.
An inspiring memoir, I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse? is a story of identity told with wise, surprising humor. It takes readers on a journey that's both metaphysical and whimsical; one that is by turns rivetingly dramatic and unexpectedly light. Illustrated with drawings, charts, newspaper clippings, silly graphs, and real EEGs and MRIs, I Had Brain Surgery . . . turns one artist's story into a universal book about creativity, family, healing, love, commitment, and that intangible something that gives each of us our spark
Author Biography:Suzy Becker is an author, artist, and entrepreneur. She received the Anti-Defamation League's "A World of Difference" Award for her community service initiatives, and was named New England Women Business Owners' youngest-ever Woman of the Year. She was a 1993-94 White House Fellow and a 1999-00 Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe. She lives in central Massachusetts.
SYNOPSIS
The author of the bestselling All I Needed to Know I Learned from My Cat (1990) "comes out" in a moving cartoon-filled memoir of her experience of being diagnosed with, treated for, and rehabilitated from a brain tumor and surgery. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Cartoonist and writer Becker (All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat) sloughed off her repeated seizures as stress-related and lived with the strangeness of periodic episodes for three and half years, until a friend witnessed an attack in May 1999. Becker finally sought medical testing and underwent brain surgery. Her memoir loosely brackets the year around her procedure, from the initial diagnosis to the long, slow recovery, when unpredicted side effects interfered with her speech and even her thought processes. As Becker's healing slogs along at a snail's pace, she wonders, "Up until now, I didn't know things were missing until I went looking for them.... What about the things I don't think to look for?" Such problems assailed the essence of Becker's talents for being funny and easily expressing herself through words and drawing. Her struggle to recuperate has a profound effect on relationships and changes her own expectations about being a friend, lover and family member. As anyone might, Becker asks herself, "What if my life is a life I don't want to live?" But with the help of others and her slowly returning sense of humor, she eventually recreates a life she recognizes as her own, one in which she even completes a strenuous AIDS fund-raising bike ride and begins a competitive writing fellowship. Becker's deeply personal and surprisingly funny account intersperses text with such whimsical additions as Becker's "Cardiac Exercise Tolerance" and kooky cartoons. (Mar.) Forecast: A 20-city author tour and a national marketing campaign will draw in fans of Becker's previous work. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
A best-selling author (All I Need To Know I Learned from My Cat), artist, and entrepreneur, Becker was also a 1993-94 White House Fellow and a 1999-2000 Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe. During much of her time at the latter, she was suffering seizures but didn't tell anyone until a friend witnessed an incident. Eventually, she was scheduled for brain surgery to remove a tumor. Writing with the dry sense of humor that some of us rely on to make it through tough situations, Becker recalls her reactions to her medical problems, from liking the first doctor who gave her no bad news ("just stress") to the terror of the eventual diagnosis. Her descriptions of the surgery and its dreadful, but temporary, effects on her ability to speak, read, write, and draw make for especially compelling reading. But Becker's memoir is also about triumphs: a 500-mile bike-a-thon, the recovery of her speech, her return to drawing, and, oh yes, the Bunting Fellowship, which gave birth to this book. Illustrating her text with drawings, charts, newspaper clippings, wacky graphs, and a cartoon alter ego named Augusta, Becker has turned one person's experience into a universal story of family, healing, and the return to creativity. Highly recommended for all collections.-Mary Nickum, Ivins, UT Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
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