News
Listen, Cancer, Ya Sick Bast...! The Cancer Vixen comes to Fair Haven
By Eileen Moon
New Jersey native Marisa Acocella Marchetto had a lot of good things going on in her life in 2004. She was making impressive strides in her already-impressive career. She had a fabulous boyfriend, and on top of all that, she had great shoes.
Shoes were very important to Marchetto - the kind of shoes you call by name; the kind you line up in your closet like a beloved menagerie, each pair begging you to take them for a walk.
But the walk she would eventually take them on was one she had never imagined.
Three weeks before her wedding to Silvano Marchetto at the age of 43, Marchetto was diagnosed with breast cancer.
What happened next is the subject of Marchetto's graphic memoir, "CancerVixen," a cartoon journey into and eventually out of, the darkly absurdist, surreal, scary, devastating, and weirdly hilarious journey that followed Marchetto's diagnosis.
It is, she writes in her book, the story of "what happens when a shoe crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get-married Big City Girl Cartoonist with a fabulous life finds... a lump in her breast."
Now fully recovered, Marchetto will be speaking about her experience and showing scenes from her book at the Nauvoo Grill Club in Fair Haven at 7:30 p.m. on October 7th.
Marchetto's appearance is sponsored by River Road Books in conjunction with the publication of the paperback version of Marchetto's memoir.
At the urging of her editor at Glamour magazine, Marchetto began documenting her experiences as she moved out of the world of the casually well into the parallel universe of the cancer patient, scrutinizing the contradictions with the wacky perspective that has earned her work a coveted slot in numerous national publications, including Glamour, The New Yorker, The New York Times and Modern Bride.
"I did a lot of sketching while I was going through it. It was hard (when I had a needle) in my hand but I was sketching all the time anyway."
Marchetto also introduces readers to the medical professionals and procedures she encountered along the way, as well as her friends and her family - among them, the larger-than-life matriarch of the clan she calls "smother" (She's the Sophia Loren of New Jersey."), and the handsome Italian restaurateur who became her husband - "He's the only straight man on the planet who has more shoes than I do," she says in the book.
Marchetto, whose parents live in Spring Lake, said she always wanted a career in New York.
Because her mother is a shoe designer who worked at home, she developed an appreciation for sketching- and shoes - at a very young age. "Oh My God, it's not even in the blood! It's in the placenta!" she says.
One year, the family eschewed their usual vacation in Ocean City for a stay in the Bahamas. When her mother ("she has a big personality," Marchetto explains) told the resort manager she wanted a bigger room, the family ended up in a spacious pink cottage at the edge of the resort.
It turned out to have been a favorite of famed New Yorker cartoonist James Thurber, whose drawings were on the wall.
It was here that Marchetto had a major awakening, realizing that you could add words to your pictures, and tell a story.
With her diagnosis came an opportunity to tell a story that is in equal parts comforting and comic, angry and triumphant.
It is a story that permanently changed her view of life and her place in it, Marchetto says.
"People were talking about finding a cure for breast cancer. So what if you don't have health insurance? Are you kidding? When you don't have health insurance, you just hope it's just a pimple. A lot of women who don't have health insurance don't get something checked out when it could make a difference."
Marchetto knows what that's like. She had let her own medical coverage lapse before she was diagnosed. "It was so difficult to get it, and I was just sort of on deadline, and I basically forgot. When you're a freelancer, the insurance companies don't make it easy for you to renew your health insurance. Nobody returns your phone calls. You're just one person so they're not worried about losing an account. It's disempowering. The whole insurance thing is really a financial issue."
Marchetto qualified for coverage once she and Silvano were married - but his premiums increased substantially. "I was a pre-existing condition," says Marchetto, who was still wearing bandages from her lumpectomy when she walked down the aisle.
While writing her memoir, Marchetto learned that women without health insurance who are diagnosed with breast cancer have a greater risk of dying from the disease. To be in that predicament is terrifying, Marchetto says. "It's very debilitating. It's very demoralizing."
Following her own recovery, Marchetto resolved to do what she could to help. She founded The Cancer Vixen Fund, which pays for mammograms for women without insurance and offers a wide array of support services for those who are diagnosed. "We basically hold their hands," she says.
The first year after her recovery, Marchetto personally funded 38 mammograms. That was the beginning of the fund, which is now an official 501c3 charity that operates out of St. Vincent's hospital in Manhattan. "We've already raised about $340,000 and funded 400 mammograms," Marchetto says. "Our motto is 'No Breast Left Behind.'"
River Road Books is now taking reservations for Marchetto's appearance at Nauvook Grill. Tickets for the evening are $35 and include light hors d'oeuvres, door prizes and a donation to the CancerVixen fund.
Reservations may be made online via www.riverroadbooks.net or by calling the bookstore at (732) 747-9455.
