A timely, affecting memoir from the front lines of medical science: When genetics can predict how we may die, how then do we decide how to live?

Eleven months after her mother succumbs to cancer, Jessica Queller has herself tested for the BRCA "breast cancer" gene mutation. The results come back positive, putting her at a terrifyingly elevated risk of developing breast cancer before the age of fifty and ovarian cancer in her lifetime. Thirty-four, unattached, and yearning for marriage and a family of her own, Queller faces an agonizing choice: a lifetime of vigilant screenings and a commitment to fight the disease when caught, or its radical alternative--a prophylactic double mastectomy that would effectively restore life to her, even as it would challenge her most closely held beliefs about body image, identity, and sexuality.

Superbly informed and armed with surprising wit and style, Queller takes us on an odyssey from the frontiers of science to the private interiors of a woman's life. Pretty Is What Changes is an absorbing account of how she reaches her courageous decision and its physical, emotional, and philosophical consequences. It is also an incredibly moving story of what we inherit from our parents and how we fashion it into the stuff of our own lives, of mothers and daughters and sisters, and of the sisterhood that forms when women are united in battle against a common enemy.

Without flinching, Jessica Queller answers a question we may one day face for ourselves: If genes can map our fates and their dark knowledge is offered to us, will we willingly trade innocence for the information that could save our lives?

November 2001

My mother declared that none of us were to leave the hospital until Harriette woke up. Her voice was tense, near frantic. She stood in the fluorescent-lit waiting room of Lenox Hill's ICU, her arms crossed. My sister and I sat on a sofa nearby. It was midnight. My grandmother Harriette Tarler had been a patient at Lenox Hill on and off for years, but recent kidney failure had landed her there permanently. Over the past few weeks she'd withered in fast-motion, like a movie playing at double-speed. She'd developed sepsis. This morning she'd fallen into a coma. The doctor did not expect her to wake up.

My mother looked out of place in this shabby waiting room--like a swan in a chicken coop. Her dark, luxurious hair evoked Jacqueline Bisset, though some people compared her to Diane Von Furstenberg. ("I'm much prettier than she is--her face is too broad," she'd insist.) My mother was five foot four but stood taller in her signature Manolo Blahnik stilettos. My mom had been wearing Manolos back when Sarah Jessica Parker was in diapers. In fact, my mother had been friends with Patricia Field--the costumer for Sex and the City--in the late seventies. As children, my sister Danielle and I spent hours sitting on the floor of Patricia Field's Eighth Street boutique, collecting pins and pushing them into a cotton tomato pincushion while our mom shopped. When I was about ten years old and Danielle six, Patricia asked our mom if Dani and I could appear in one of her fashion shows. We dressed up in sexy spandex and I disco--roller--skated alongside a dozen adult models while Danielle walked around the rink wearing her yellow rain boots because there were no roller skates in her small size. My mother had always been ahead of fashion trends, but in this instance she'd recognized the talent of Patricia Field twenty years before the rest of the world.

I had just arrived at the hospital after taking a flight from Los Angeles to New York, but my mother and Danielle had been there for eight hours without a break. My mother leaned against the arm of a vinyl reclining chair and said she was thirsty, so I went to the nurses' station to fetch her some water. When I returned, Dixie cup in hand, my mom was sitting next to my sister on the sofa. Though Danielle is tall and golden blond and our mother was petite and brunette, they were unmistakably mother and daughter. Danielle had inherited our mom's panache: an urban brand of beauty that turned men's heads and intimidated other women. Danielle had also adopted her style. They each wore layered cashmere and long, narrow pants of the same color--my mother all in black, my sister all in cream. The look was finished with a spectacular pair of heels and two or three pieces of expensive jewelry. My coloring and features resembled my mother's, but that's where the similarity ended. I'd been a struggling theater actress for years and had recently segued into writing. I was a "ragamuffin" (my mother's word) who clutched worn copies of Chekhov and made friends with homeless people on the street. During that time, to my mother's chagrin, my wardrobe consisted of sweaters with holes and old jeans. The closest thing to jewelry I owned was a string of thrift--store beads.

When our mother went to the ladies' room, Danielle briefed me on what I'd missed. On his rounds, Dr. Roth had informed them that Harriette's case was considered terminal, so she would not be allowed to remain in the ICU for long; the hospital needed the bed. He broached the subject of taking her off life support and our mom became hysterical. She insisted that Harriette would wake from her coma. "Harriette's threatened to die for ten years but she...

 

"By turns inspiring, sorrowful and profoundly moving. Queller's sense of humor and grace transform the most harrowing of situations into a riveting and heartfelt memoir."

 

"Seamless and gripping. Readers will be rooting for Queller and her heroic decision to confront her genetic destiny."

 

"Jessica Queller gives us a warm, chilling, unflinching look at her personal journey of survival with style. The ending will surprise you. Her prescience is astounding. Her courage is inspirational. Brava Jessica!"

 

Jessica Queller has written for numerous television shows, including Gossip Girl, Gilmore Girls, Felicity, and One Tree Hill. She lives in New York and Los Angeles.

 

Pretty Is What Changes by Jessica Queller
Continue Browsing		View Wish List