Sick Joke
Cancer, Japan, and Back Again
by Glenn Deir
- Runner-up, Rogers Communication Award for Non-Fiction
Sick Joke is one quirky travelogue. Glenn Deir spent two years happily stumbling through the conundrums of Japanese culture. Then he got tonsil cancer and less happily stumbled through the conundrums of medical culture. Sick Joke is a tale of two journeys told simultaneously that will make you laugh out loud.
close this panel"Everyone who has ever battled cancer or known someone who has should read Sick Joke.” You will finish it with a renewed respect for what the human spirit can endure, and what a lust for life can get you through. Thanks, Glenn. Your book just might save somebody’s life."
"Sick Joke is [Deir's] humourous – sometimes hilarious – account of his fight against cancer. In this memoir he shares the details of his battle in a commendable, vulnerably comical – p’raps witty is a better word – fashion."
"As a funny, honest memoir about cancer, this book is really good... There aren't enough funny books about cancer, and this is a good one."
"The book is funny - often hilariously so - because of Deir's readiness to laugh at himself. But Deir is no clown; his voice is dignified, and comes across as true."
"Writer and broadcaster Glenn Deir takes us on a personal health journey that begins -- as many often do -- with the discovery of a lump. Writing with brutal, laser-like honesty and rare humor, Deir takes us from Japan to Newfoundland to the famed Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, to that dark place where we're forced to contemplate our mortality. And to that place where we surrender control of our bodies and make that leap of faith to trust our healers. This is 'medicine, from Deir's side of the gurney.' If you've ever entertained a doubt that your doctors actually know what they're doing, this is the book for you."-
