In his entertaining cancer memoir, Peter Goldsworthy explores the ‘necessary narcissism’ of illness
- Written by David McCooey, Professor of Writing and Literature, Deakin University
Illness memoir is based on a tension between the general and the particular. The writer presents (to use a medical term) as both representing all sufferers of a particular malady – in this case, myeloma – and a unique individual experiencing a specific, unrepeatable event. Peter Goldsworthy, who is...