Rehearsals for Dying

Advance Praise for Rehearsals for Dying ""A moving account of a life lost."" —Booklist ""Utterly arresting."" —San Francisco Chronicle “Breast cancer is no joke, but sometimes finding the humor shifts the story into something you can tell. Rehearsals for Dying will help many.” —Tig Notaro, comedian “I was so moved by this book—and charmed, and outraged, and devastated. Ariel Gore brings her keen wit and signature fearlessness to a story that could not have higher stakes, churning out a legit masterpiece that I could not put down. Her insistence upon radical truth and the style in which it’s told—elegant, snarky, raw, poetic—left me awed, my own humanity electrified.” —Michelle Tea, author of Knocking Myself Up “Rehearsals For Dying is one of the most innovative and compelling memoirs exploring life and grief I’ve ever read—and I’ve read a lot of them. Ariel Gore’s observational wit and empathetic heart made this a book I read in two sittings. With a refreshing and propulsive structure, Ariel queers the grief memoir in a way I didn’t know I needed. She asks the unanswerable questions and explores the unspeakable answers.” —Chloé Caldwell, author of Women “In Rehearsals for Dying, Ariel Gore has woven together wit, humor, poetry, and raw emotions to present the heart-wrenching truth of what it means to live with cancer as a biological and a social phenomenon, and the real cost it exacts on both its victims and their loved ones.” —Nafis Hasan, author of Metastasis “Ariel Gore is a national treasure, and Rehearsals for Dying is a profound gift to us all. In her brilliantly bold, genre-defying manner, Gore looks head-on at the devastating loss of her beloved wife, Deena E. Chafetz, as well as the broader machinations of the patriarchal breast cancer–industrial complex. Guided by the voices of Audre Lorde, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, Lucille Clifton, Susan Sontag, and other feminist writers who’ve grappled in life and on the page with cancer and death, Gore has crafted a literary experience that is part heartbreaking tribute, part experimental memoir, part exalted homage to queer love and community, and part indictment of the violent failures of America's broken medical ‘care’ systems. Also there are recipes, because Deena Chafetz was a chef, and—despite it all!—it's really funny. Because Ariel Gore is a magician. I’m so grateful for this book.” —Kate Schatz, author of Rad Women Worldwide “Rehearsals for Dying is stunning: highly informative, wildly crafty, and incredibly vulnerable. I marveled at Ariel Gore’s ability to weave together so many stories and threads all while remaining emotionally ferocious and tender and loving. This is a book everyone should read.” —Tomas Moniz, author of Big Familia Praise for Ariel Gore “An insightful observer.” —New York Times on Fuck Happiness “This book mimics the messy, discursive texture of memory—of life. . . . Inventive and affecting.”—Kirkus Reviews on We Were Witches “Gore tells her story with such verve and wit I missed my train stop reading it.”—Lambda Literary Review on We Were Witches “This book is a magical field guide that will set the crap that needs to burn on fire, and compost the living shit out of the wrong world toward revolution, revelation, reformation, and release. I'm all in.”—Lidia Yuknavitch, bestselling author of The Chronology of Water, on Hexing the Patriarchy “Just holding this book in my hands makes me feel giddy with hope.”—Karen Karbo, author of In Praise of Difficult Women, on Hexing the Patriarchy