Our Cancer Year

#387
Title: Our Cancer Year
Authors: Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner
Illustrator: Frank Stack
Year: 1994
Publisher: Four Walls Eight Windows
252 pages

Another jury duty waiting room book. This is a graphic memoir of Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner's year or so during which Harvey discovered and was treated for cancer. The story is coherent enough and intertwines with one about Brabner's work (both she and Harvey are comic book writers). Frank Stack's illustrations are sometimes difficult to puzzle out and characters' expressions don't always match their affect. Still, the story and emotions will be familiar to anyone who has been intimately involved with cancer treatment, and the book length and format permit a greater range of nuance than does a standard comic book-sized memoir.