“It’s not all black down there.”
Baker, knitter, animal lover, wife, mother – but most of all, a writer. That’s how Eliza Walton sees herself. Until, halfway through her MFA studies, a diagnosis of rectal cancer lands on her head. Fear, shame, and dread threaten to pull her under.
How to face an anxiety-laden year of radiation, chemo, and a permanent colostomy?
Family, friends, caregivers, even her animals, all help. But Eliza’s pen becomes her best weapon. Chronicling each assault on her body with startling honesty, Eliza uses the act of writing to make sense of her powerlessness in the face of this unspeakable illness. When her vitriolic alter-ego appears, she and Eliza navigate the terror, absurdity, and even the humor, of an uncertain future together.
Neither superficial nor overly sentimental, The Colors I Saw is a riveting metafictional memoir filled with references to the literature that fueled Eliza’s imagination and sustained her. It’s the story of her deep shame and loss, accepting an unacceptable reality, and the friends and family who helped her survive. In the messy journey from “You have rectal cancer” to living a full, if somewhat altered, life, this endearing page-turner is not about whether the author survives, but how.
“Whether fearful or funny about becoming a patient, Eliza C. Walton illuminates the problem of shame that many patients with colorectal cancer experience. As an irascible alter ego emerges to rage against the indignities of treatments, Walton tenderly clarifies the pains and pleasures of a survival enriched by love of literature and of everyday life in a small town in Maine.” —Susan Gubar, author of the column “Living With Cancer” for the online New York Times
