A KINGDOM OF TENDER COLORS

A novelist, playwright, and screenwriter reflects on his cancer treatment in the 1990s and how it changed his life.

When he was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma in 1993 at age 37, Greenland feared that he wouldn’t live to accomplish as much as he has in his career. He had barely been married for three years at the time, with a daughter who was 2 and his wife pregnant with their second child. After the diagnosis, he was worried that he wouldn’t survive until the birth. Thus, there is plenty of drama in the middle sections of this memoir, but readers know that there’s a happy enough ending. Greenland has lived to tell the tale, and he explains why he is now writing about the cancer that he was afraid would kill him. At the time, he was searching for a book that might help him provide context or even some hope. “Where is the first-person account,” he asked himself, “written in a loose, amusing yet informative style by someone who has been through this terrifying experience and (big caveat) lived to write about it? How am I supposed to cope without a book? There is no other way for me to frame my situation. I vow to write that book if I survive.” Initially, he was told that a cure was impossible and that remission would not last. Via chemotherapy and, later, holistic medicine, meditation, and other alternative methods (“four coffee enemas a day”), he beat the odds. Greenland is not prescriptive about his approach. Rather, he provides genial, engaging, humorous company throughout the narrative, showing how one can gain a new appreciation for life at its most mundane as well as miraculous.

A survivor’s tale provides solace for those facing similar challenges.

A survivor’s tale provides solace for those facing similar challenges.