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Published by Argo-Navis
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Based on Evan Handler's hit off-Broadway play (called by The
New York Times "laceratingly funny and self-revealing"), Time on Fire is a remarkable memoir of illness and survival, love
and hope -- shot through with anger, humor, and piercing
eloquence. Evan Handler was twenty-four and already an accomplished actor
when he was diagnosed with acute leukemia and told that his
chances for survival were slim. Resigning his role in Neil Simon's
Biloxi Blues, Handler checked into New York Memorial's Cancer
Center and began a bizarre, sometimes uproarious five-year journey
in and out of hospitals -- "a raucous rump through Hell" -- only
to face an equally arduous return to the life he left behind. Time on Fire is the story of Handler's passage into a
twilight world: a place of lonely, haunting despair lit by moments
of exultation and hilarity; a world where the truly horrible and
the hysterically funny not only coexist but seem to become the
same thing. Told with the trenchant humor of a survivor, it takes
a wry, unflinching look at the absurdity of fighting for life in a
place where death is what is most expected, and a health care
system on the brink of madness. It is the story of refusing to
succumb to the pressures of conformity that threatened his
recovery and of the fierce struggle to find the road back to
health -- at all costs. From the comic accounts of his trip to a Madison Avenue sperm
bank ("Nothing but the best address for my progeny") and his
experimentation with psychic healing, to the portrayal of the
unraveling effects of his illness on his family and girlfriend,
Handler records with astonishing precision the full emotional
range of his experience. The result is a bracing, achingly
poignant account of his determination to steal time and reclaim
life. Glowing with uncommon insights and uncompromising honesty, Time on Fire is a testament to the bravery and the endurance of
the human spirit. pub date: 2012-11-30 | ebook | B00AHGGFLK |
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