416 RüdigerKunow
young children, woke up with a headache. 'Not just any headache,' she
would recall later, 'but a sort of numbness in my head. The kind of
numbness that instantly tells you that something is terribly wrong.'
Something had been terribly wrong for nearly a month. Late in April,
Carla had discovered a few bruises on her back. They had suddenly
appeared one morning, like strange stigmata, then grown and vanished
overthenextmonth...(1)These "strange stigmata"—a semiotic with religious overtones,
reminiscent of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion—turned out to be the
signs of leukemia. Soon after limning the scope of patient Carla's
disease and the initial medical response, the narrative leaves her and
turns to the frustrations of cancer research and researches. Later, the
narrativewillreturntoitsfirstprotagonist(esp.126-27,168,398,448);
and Carla will even be given the "last word" when she declares that
cancer has become "my new normal"—a position which the narrative
voice then generalizes: "cancer will, indeed, be the new normal—an
inevitability" (459). Before we get to that endpoint, however,Emperor
ofMaladieshaspresentedmanysimilarmicro-narrativesofothercancer
patients which are combined with—not connected to—historical
accounts of cancer treatments, of early and contemporary research, and
thetribulationsofcancerresearchers.Itseemsasifcancer,being"atotal
disease" (125), one which "subsumes all living" (398), requires
something like a "total narrative," composed of many genres, diegetic
andextradiegeticfocalizers,etc.^111
"Total" here does not mean totalizing. Rather, the book in all its
comprehensiveness remains strictly episodic: the iteratives of trial-and-
error(mostlyerror)ofcancerresearchandtheequallyiterativestoriesof
peoplelivingwithcancerarenotallowedtofindasynthesizingclosure,
an Archimedean point which holds everything in balance, nor does the
(^111) In doing this, Mukherjee follows an established practice in the as yet young
genre of science writing. Thus, Maryn McKenna's book on methicillin-resistant
Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA),Superbug(2010), is actually composed of a
series of micro-narratives or "biopics." These provide for narrative suspense
(what will happen to the patient) and strike a balance between scientific
informationandthelivedexperienceof"real"humanbeings,identifiedbyname
andlocation.