NotNormativelyHuman 201
Society,stopsby.TheladystronglyurgesLordetowearabreast-shaped
padasaprostheticdevicelikeshedoes.Nobody,sheargues,willnotice
the difference, and, better still: "'You'llnever know the difference,' and
she lost me right there," Lorde says, "because I knew sure as hell,I'd
know the difference" (42; emphasis original). Lorde almost instinctive
recoilsfromtheideaof(re)producinganormativelyshapedbodyinthis
way.Theprostheticbraprovidedby"ReachforRecovery"doesnotfeel
rightforherwhileitmayfeelrightforothersthatarenotill:"...Imost
certainly did not feel better with a lambswool puff stuck in the front of
my bra. The real truth is that certain other people feel better with the
lumpstuckintomybra..."(65).
From very early on, still in her post-op stage, Lorde encounters the
pervasive social and cultural pressures to normalize her now non-
normative body even if only in an unreal, spectral form—as "the ghost
of a breast" no longer there (68). The pressures she feels are coming
fromcultureatlarge,butalsofromcaregiverswhoseprimaryjobitisto
helpmastectomypatientsovercometheirtraumaticexperiences.Byway
of anecdotal evidence, Lorde furthermore recalls how during post-op
treatmentsheischidedbyanursethatherrefusaltowearaprosthesisis
"bad for the morale" of the doctor's office (52, 60). Even while Lorde,
like others, does want to go "back to normal" in the conventional sense
oftheword,backtoherlovedonesandherlifeasitwasprevioustothe
mastectomy,sherealizesthatshehasenteredanewdispensation,anew
normal, and that she must learn to negotiate "this new and changed
landscape"ofhernon-normativebody(45).CancerresearcherSiddharta
Mukherjee's observation about cancer being "a total disease—an illness
thatgrip[s]patientsnotjustphysically,butpsychologically,sociallyand
emotionally"(125)seemsverymuchtothepointhere.
HowtodealwithhernolongernormativebodyisforLordenotonly
a personal issue but also a political mission. I am using the term
"mission" advisedly because theCancer Journalsare at all moments
more than a misery memoir of personal suffering.^47 They are also a
contestation of what passes as "normal" about a woman's body in
medical contexts but also in U.S. culture at large. As "a personal and
(^47) For versions of this argument which is widely shared among critics of this
workcf.Jurecic8,80,86;orKissamMorris175-76.