Drawn out
Marisa Acocella Marchetto has long toiled as a cartoonist for The New Yorker and Glamour. So when she was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, Marchetto responded in the best way she knew how: by drawing cartoons. More than 210 pages of them.
"Cancer Vixen" is the result: a memoir in cartoon form that vividly chronicles Marchetto's yearlong battle with the disease. Or, in the words that open the book, "What happens when a shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get-married big-city girl cartoonist (me, Marisa Acocella) with a fabulous life finds . . . a lump in her breast?!?" A movie version of "Cancer Vixen" is in the works, starring Cate Blanchett as Marchetto.
Pop! recently caught up with Marchetto, who will appear at the Jabberwocky Bookshop in Newburyport at 7 p.m. Thursday in an event that is free and open to the public.
DON AUCOIN
Q. Was this book a kind of catharsis by cartoon? Did you feel you still had some control over the disease if you could incorporate it into your art?
A. I definitely felt I had some control over my reaction, that by focusing on the work, it took the focus off cancer, even though I was writing about it. I felt that should be true every step of the way, that instead of focusing on a lumpectomy I would focus on a deadline, or what I would wear to my wedding, or on writing. I always found that for me, a little bit of denial is not a bad thing.
Q. But wasn't it strange sometimes to be experiencing cancer as material?
A. A little bit. But at least when I was interviewing myself I knew when I was lying.
Q. Were you inspired at all by Art Spiegelman's "Maus" or other graphic novels and memoirs?
A. I'm completely inspired by "Maus." It's funny, because I had written a graphic novel in 1994 that got really good reviews but went pretty much unnoticed because the concept of graphic novels was relatively new. Now I'm happy to see if you write a graphic novel people are more willing to pick it up. It's thrilling to see the whole landscape change.
Q. You depict cancer cells as little green meanies flipping you the bird. Was it an advantage to express yourself nonverbally at times in the book?
A. I think visually, so it was easier for me to put it down in images rather than just pure words. I thought that if I sort of made fun of cancer cells it was my way of saying, "So there, you think you got me, but you didn't."
Q. My favorite character in "Cancer Vixen" is your mother. She comes across as extraordinarily loving but almost supernaturally bossy. What's been her reaction to the book?
A. You know how people can beep in when you're on the phone? My mother just called me twice while I was talking to you. When I get off the phone, I'm going to have to call her back. She is domineering and bossy but so hilariously funny. She really is that character.
Q. Then there's your husband [Silvano Marchetto, owner of Da Silvano , a Manhattan restaurant favored by celebrities, media types, and fashionistas ]. You write about models hitting on him right in front of you in his restaurant.
A. When I first started dating him, there were a lot of models around him. The world's most beautiful women go to his restaurant. Here I am, I'm not a model, I'm not 5 feet 10 inches and 102 pounds. They would look at me and go, "You're dating him?" When I was diagnosed and told him I didn't have insurance, he took care of me, and married me when he said he would. Here he's surrounded by women with the best legs, the best butts, and the best breasts, and he married a woman who had breast cancer, and whose most outstanding body part is her nose.
If you say so, Eric
'Further investigation proved . . . the song, if anything, if it's not even ambivalent, it's an anti-drug song.' Eric Clapton, trying to explain why he's playing "Cocaine" in concert again.FROM WIRE REPORTS 
