Review: "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan

I read this book last weekend. It was quite good; good enough that I stayed up late twice and took it to my son's basketball game -- to read only during the breaks in the action, of course.

It is a memoir by a young mom (late thirties) with breast cancer. The Middle Place is "that sliver of time when parenthood and childhood overlap." As much as anything, this is a memoir about growing up as Kelly Corrigan and her current relationships with her parents, especially her father.

I think this is actually the better developed theme, although I might be biased. I'm a different kind of daughter than Kelly Corrigan, and my father died long before I had cancer, but I have still viewed much of my life through the lens of being my father's daughter. So... I get it.

When I read a breast cancer story, I'm looking for those moments when I read something that's really unique and intriguing. I had one of those moments in Chapter 5 when Corrigan writes that a "sick part of me actually wants the bad diagnosis" just to prove that she is not a hypochondriac, to show that sometimes fears are justified, to "know how I would perform." These thoughts are of course just a "flashes of curiosity" that she then secretly takes back. It takes a lot of courage and self-examination to be that forthright. Add in the fact that there's an Edgar Allen Poe reference in the passage, and you've definitely pulled me in :)

Speaking of Poe, the other reason that I was eager to read the book was that I thought that Corrigan was from Baltimore (like me). I was wrong. Her dad is from Baltimore and my city really doesn't figure into the book. Oh well.

But I did live in Central California for a long time. Corrigan, a Bay Area resident, mentions that a woman at the hospital "looks like she's come into the big city from her farm in Central California -they don't sell shoes like hers in the city."

Hmmm. OK, to be sure the Central Valley isn't anything like San Francisco, and Bay Area residents often take little swipes at Central California...but for the record I really loved living in Fresno. It has charms all its own. One thing that I've been blessed with is a bloom-where-you're-planted mentality that sure came in quite handy during the years that we spent moving all around the country.


But I digress... I really enjoyed The Middle Place as a fast-paced read that is tailor-made for those of us who had to tell both our children and our parents that "I have breast cancer."


Edited to add content Jan 21, 2008.