Seeds of Mortality: The Public and Private Worlds of Cancer Book

According to the publicity of cancer, we are at last emerging from the time when the disease was surrounded by the unhealthy silence of denial. Stewart Justman is less certain about our so-called progress. A cancer patient himself, in Seeds of Mortality he separates the experience of cancer from the publicity and disputes the liberation rhetoric that has somehow established itself in the cancer world. He questions whether in fact the past was an age of darkness, whether silence is necessarily harmful (or conspiratorial), whether the openness of publicity is our best personal defense against cancer. He argues that cancer is a much more enigmatic disease than the publicity would suggest, that to those who stand in its presence the traditions of humility may still have something to say. Mr. Justman explores these questions with telling references to great art and literature, especially Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilych and the paintings of Brueghel. And he looks into the sources of our culture's fascination with publicity as an instrument of enlightenment and a cure for what ails us. In all, Seeds of Mortality is not simply another cancer diary; it is a fresh breeze of thinking about a subject that has become mired in cant and ritual.

His witty, ironical and provocative style grips and delights the reader: One does not let go of this book easily.
— From the Program for the Pen Awards Ceremony