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At the age of 32, Katherine Russell Rich was a newly divorced magazine editor living
in the Big Apple. However, her life changed dramatically over the course of the next 10
years as she struggled with breast cancer. THE RED DEVIL is the memoir she has chosen to
write about those years in which her indefatigable spirit came up against many an obstacle
and yet still seemed to persevere.
The interesting thing about this book is, aside from her wonderfully conversational tone
and gentle way of letting you into the most painful details of her life without making you
feel sorry for her, that she was straddling two very different worlds during her
treatment. As a young woman interested in picking up the pieces of her romantic life after
a disastrous relationship, she was concerned with her career, with dating, with retirement
accounts and taxes, and all the usual career girl objectives. On the other hand, she found
herself adrift in a world of hospitals and doctors, malpractice concerns, and
chemotherapy, not the place for a hip young editor with her whole life ahead of her.
With a family that had a long history of cancer, Rich found herself facing difficult and
monumental tasks of both treatment and reoccurrence of the cancer. She discusses with
great frankness the way that having cancer made her "crazy" and the surrealistic
way she lived her life in the public eye while shading her private hell from those around
her. Trying to live a "normal" life, she runs into generations of trouble, not
wanting to give in to the disease but being forced to for her life's sake.
THE RED DEVIL is a really great book. Like Mary Karr's memoirs, Rich turns the smallest
detail into an epic of an adventuresome spirit and the depths of despair at the same time.
It is a wondrous achievement in both writing and personal triumph. A highly recommended
read.
--- Reviewed by Jana Siciliano
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