Rehearsals for Dying

An expansive, darkly funny, and deeply personal reflection on the reality of living withand dying frommetastatic breast cancer.Deena stepped out of the shower and opened her towel in the steam. Does my breast look weird?These words irrevocably change the lives of writer Ariel Gore and her wife. As they descend into a world of doctors and tests, medications and insurance, sickness and treatments and hope and pain and more, they discover just how little they truly knewdespite the awareness campaigns and hyper-visible pink ribbonsabout the reality of breast cancer. Over the four years following Deenas terminal diagnosis, Gore does what she always does, no matter how difficult or personal the subject: she writes about it.With keen insights, empathy, and humor, Ariel Gore braids together the story of Deenas experience, her own role as a caretaker, narratives from others living with breast cancer, literary reflections on illness, and reportage on the history of breast cancer and the $200 billion industry that capitalizes on and profits from breast cancer screenings and treatments.Rehearsals for Dyinginvestigates and challenges everything we think we know about breast cancer. It goes beyond awareness to knowledge, presenting a rich, nuanced, heartbreaking, and hopeful portrait of what it is to be diagnosed with, treat, and live with breast cancer in the twenty-first century.