Monday, April 6, 2009

The Big C HIts the Book Shelves

Cancer has long been a popular cinematic plot element, from Love Story to The Bucket List.

(As luck would have it, American Airlines showed the tragic movie Love Story on our flight to Hawaii, just two weeks after my MCL diagnosis. And by "tragic," I don't mean that Jenny dies. I mean the DOA script.)

If you're interested in a cancer patient's review of cancer movies, check out this list compiled by The Assertive Cancer Patient. (Click on the movie title to read the witty reviews.)

Even though most of us could easily tick off a half dozen cancer movies, we'd be hard pressed to come up with even one fiction book with cancer characters.

My friend Barbara (one of six Barbara friends), who is working on an MS in Library Science at UCLA, just sent me this link to a list of a dozen novels with characters with the Big C.

I've always thought it would be interesting to create an unsympathetic cancer character. (Jack Nicholson fits the bill in Bucket List.) Better yet, imagine the possibilities of an evil bone marrow donor who frames the recipient of his life-saving stem cells. They have the same blood DNA, ya' know, so there's got to be something a skilled (and twisted) writer could do with that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Or, how about the cancer patient who frames someone into becoming a donor. I'm trying not to cheat, so haven't checked out your list. I can't think of any books yet...