Pretty Is What Changes: Impossible Choices, The Breast Cancer Gene, And How I Defied My Destiny - Rilegato

Queller, Jessica

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0385520409 ISBN 13: 9780385520409

Casa editrice: Spiegel & Grau, 2008

Riassunto

A timely, affecting memoir from the front lines of medical science: When genetics can predict how we may die, how then do we decide how to live?

Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA “breast cancer” gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative—a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality.

Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman’s life. Pretty Is What Changes is an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy.

Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives?

Su questo libro

Informazioni sull?autore

Jessica Queller has written for numerous television shows, including Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, and One Tree Hill. She lives in New York and Los Angeles.

Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Spiegel & Grau
• Data di pubblicazione: 2008
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0385520409
• ISBN 13: 9780385520409
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 247
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: non disponibile