The “Dying from Cancer” novelization. What works and what doesn’t.

There is an oft repeated quote from movie reviewers accredited to Roger Ebert. “It's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.” the same could be true of novels. Certainly, there is much overlap between the two mediums.

On one of my most recent trips to the library, I picked up two books. I did not do more than scan the inside cover, reading the novels’ quick pitches. Both seemed to deal with terminal illness. Being in a melancholy mood, I decided to check both out.

The first, and shortest, of the two I read was The Wishing Trees (TWT) by John Shors. The basic plot is that a man and his daughter are about a year and a half past their wife’s/mom’s death from cancer. They are still quite soaked in their grief. Mom (Kate) has left behind some cannisters filled with instructions for them. Written before her death, Kate has directions for Ian (husband) and Mattie (daughter). Her wish is that they go on a multi-week tour across the Far East. She wants Ian to share with Mattie the same experiences that Ian spent with Kate while they were still in courtship. As they arrive at each country, Ian and Mattie have to open the next cannister to see what country Kate is sending them to and what she wants them to accomplish there.

I preface my critique with a shout out to John Shors. In the About the Author section at the end of the book, Shors states his concern for the poor in the developing countries of the Far East. His novel touches on the plight of the poor and orphaned in India, and the rampant sex trafficking in Thailand. He states that he has charitably given for these causes and invites that the reader can help. Kudos to him for using his resources to help people.

With that being said, I hated TWT. My major complaint with this book is that none of the characters are real. They are all so wholesome and good. They spend half the novel crying. I do not speak from experience, as I have not lost anyone truly close to me, yet. My parents, siblings, wife, children are all still living and healthy. I know that people grieve differently than others.

Still, a year and a half has passed since Kate’s death. The main characters are still up, it seems, every night crying over her. Shors writes that he did not want to make his characters overly sad. He didn’t?! I was so overwhelmed in their grief, I felt like I was drowning as I read this.

Kate writes in the last days of her illness. Her notes are so long and heartfelt, so unconcerned with her suffering. The purpose of her sending them off on this trip is so that they can deal with the grief losing her. I don’t know. Like I have said, I have seen relatives dying from cancer, but none up close. I have not observed death that closely. I do believe that in most cases of the terminally ill, they are mostly sedated to reduce suffering. I don’t think they would have the capacity to be AAA and plan vacations, much less write (bad) poetry like Kate does.

Morally, there are no flaws with these do-gooders. In her prime, Kate speaks out against all injustice. One of her directions is to go to Hong Kong where her best friend lives. She sends Ian and Mattie there in hopes that Ian will hook up with Kate’s best friend. Of course, Ian and best friend do get together. Ian always says and does the right thing. In the novel, they rescue a teenage girl in Thailand from sex trafficking, give her a nice sum of money . They get an Indian boy out of the street and into an orphanage. Mattie keeps thinking of this boy for the rest of the novel, drawing pictures of him, telling her dad they should buy things for him, send it to him.

I have an eleven-year-old now. I teach eleven-year-olds weekly for Sunday School. Some are quiet, artistic, thoughtful. Others are loud, self-centered. All of the children do have moments when they act like children. Mattie doesn’t. She has only one tantrum. It is in the last few pages of the book.

That was why I could not accept this book, couldn’t accept their grief. No people are that good, selfless all the time. If an author can’t convince me that these characters exist, then I can’t be convinced this story is anything but a fairytale.

Contrast that with the second book I read, So Much for That (SMFT) by Lionel Shriver. The timeframes for the books are different. Glynnis is a wife and mom, like Kate. However, she gets her diagnosis of cancer early in the book. The rest of the narrative is centered on her suffering. She dies in the final few pages of the book.

The premise here is that her husband, Shep, has saved close to a million dollars. Shep wants to leave the United States while young. His plan is to go to the developing world, find a place where a person can live on pennies a day, and live off his accumulated wealth. When Glynnis gets her diagnosis, his plan to leave within a few days is completely destroyed.

Glynnis is quite human in her suffering. She is an easily offended, spiteful, scornful human being. I could relate to her quite easily. She felt and acted terrifically human. When people come and visit her, she does not play nice. She fights with her family as they all try to cope with Glynnis in their imperfect ways. The only person who Glynnis can relate to civilly is her best friend’s child Flick, who has Familial dysautonomia (FD).

In this novel, there is loads of dysfunction. Shep is the main character. He has a best friend Jackson (Flick’s father) who would be siloed as a populist right-winger today. Jackson is noted for ranting about how bad America is, how the hard working get screwed over. Jackson is a pitiful character. For convoluted reasons, he gets a botch penis enlargement surgery. That, and his free spending, destroys the relationship with his wife Carol. Jackson commits suicide late in the book after his world implodes.

I enjoyed this book much more, though it was more literary, by far, than TWT. Thoughts, feelings, motivations are much more richly explored in SMFT. I could belief what was going on because I could relate to the characters, their struggles.

Both novels were written from secular humanists’ point of view. TWT holds the flowery, insulting hope that the dead make it to a good place in the afterlife just because they aren’t Hitler. Mattie and Ian believe mom is watching them, approving what they are doing. They speak to her as if she is still alive.

SMFT does not talk much about the afterlife, mostly because Glynnis is still living through much of the book. The few times it is addressed, the view of the characters is of materialism. There is nothing beyond the grave. When life ends, it’s over.

I have more respect for SMFT than TWT. That is, I respect more the people who have a nihilistic view of death than an unsupported optimism that a good afterlife awaits with nothing more than good feeling behind it.

Both books go out of their way to divorce themselves from Christianity. Ian believes there is no God. Shep has a presbyterian minister father, who suffers himself from a fall. Shep’s father relinquishes his faith in God by book’s ending.

As an evangelical Christian, I read these novels bemusedly. As mentioned in an earlier book review, that all these secular novels, whatever their topics, have to at least mention that there is no God, might just say something. I don’t need to be continually told that God doesn’t exist, unless…

SMFT brings up abortion based on Flick’s condition. However, if the author is stating a pro-choice view, her book undercuts it. Flick’s condition sounds horrible. What Carol goes through as primary caretaker sounds just as bad. And yet, Flick finds purpose and meaning by the end of the novel. The other characters love her. They look out for her. She does pass.

Her passing deals with the other social issue of the age regarding life, euthanasia. It is left ambiguous whether Flick dies as a result of the natural progression of her disease, or if she takes hoarded medications to end of her own choice. Teri Schiavo is discussed among the characters on a few occasions. Shep ends up counseling Glynnis to refuse any more treatment and just accept her unavoidable death.

While Glynnis’s condition has to deal with more end-of-life care issues, and Shep’s decision I don’t find morally repugnant, the other issues are discussed. The general viewpoint is that euthanasia is a societal and personal good, although Shriver isn’t homogeneous in having her characters holding only one viewpoint. There is enough debate to show that there are many sides to the issue.

The entire genre of untimely death affecting people could fill libraries. As a writer, it is something that I will, most likely, attempt in some form as I continue to write. I hope to present a realistic picture of suffering, the human condition like SMFT. Creating something like TWT might cause me to fold up my laptop and put it on the shelf for good.