MAYER, Musa 1943-

PERSONAL: Born January 18, 1943, in Iowa City, IA; daughter of Philip (a painter) and Musa (McKim) Guston; married Daniel Morris Kadish, 1962 (divorced, 1972); married Thomas R. Mayer (a neuropsychologist), 1976; children: (first marriage) David, Jonathan. Education: New York University, B.A., 1964; Wright State University, M.S., 1976; Columbia University, M.F.A., 1989.

ADDRESSES: Office—O'Reilly, 90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140. E-mail—musa@echonyc.com.

CAREER: Mental health counselor and breast cancer patient advocate. Food and Drug Administration, Cancer Drug Development Program, Washington, DC, patient representative/consultant.

AWARDS, HONORS: Martha Albrand Award, International PEN, 1989, for Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter.

WRITINGS:

Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter, Knopf (New York, NY), 1988, published with new afterword, Da Capo Press, 1997.

Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery, Faber & Faber (Boston, MA), 1993.

Holding Tight, Letting Go: Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer, O'Reilly (Cambridge, MA), 1997, second edition published as Advanced Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living with Metastatic Disease, O'Reilly (Cambridge, MA), 1998.

After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask, O'Reilly (Cambridge, MA), 2003.

SIDELIGHTS: Musa Mayer's gifts as a memoirist have been noted by a number of critics. Reviewing Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter for the Houston Chronicle, Patricia Johnson found that "as the author's own complex and contradictory feelings toward him are sifted and analyzed, Philip Guston emerges as an unforgettable, complex man and an artist of extraordinary devotion, and as Mayer reaches that depth of understanding, so does the reader." San Francisco Chronicle reviewer Kenneth Baker noted, "Readers who knew Guston will recognize him on just about every page of his daughter's courageous memoir. Without exaggeration or breach of tact, she evokes well the bigger-than-life quality that made him unforgettable to everyone who encountered him."

In Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery, Mayer puts her own struggles and emotions on center stage as she deals with the devastating news that she has breast cancer. Since her own gynecologist had failed to diagnose the disease for two years, Mayer is angry at first, channeling that anger into an activist stance that inspires her to seek out all the information she can. At the same time, she seeks a physician who can provide the support she needs. As reviewer Naomi Schneider explained in the Women's Review of Books, "Mayer resists being rendered passive or infantilized, even as she yearns for someone with 'god-like powers.'" Eventually, Mayer finds a doctor she can trust and rely on, but the cancer has progressed to the point that she must undergo a mastectomy, as well as radiation and chemotherapy treatments. With painstaking honesty, Mayer describes the emotional impact of the surgery, and the other changes to her body, such as the premature onset of menopause brought on by chemotherapy. "I didn't feel female anymore, much less a sexual being," she wrote. But this is not a book of despair. It is a book of advice and empowerment for women struggling with the fear and loss of self-esteem that Mayer had to work through. As Schneider explained in her review, "Mayer nicely mixes factual data and anecdotal material; while she heralds scientific breakthroughs, she calls for continued activism by women to keep breast cancer in the public eye."

Mayer has gone on to write a number of inspirational, informative books for breast cancer survivors and their families. In Holding Tight, Letting Go: Living with Metastatic Breast Cancer she draws on interviews with forty women and men living with breast cancer, mixing their insights and experiences with practical advice on both the physical and emotional aspects of the disease. The book was later revised and published as Advanced Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living with Metastatic Disease, with updates inspired by Mayer's experience with the Breast Cancer Mailing List (www.bclist.org). The book offers hope and advice for patients in which the cancer reappears in a different location or recurs after treatment. The result, according to Oncology Nursing Forum contributor Lynn Borstelmann, "is an excellent source of emotional, cognitive, and psychosocial support for patients and families—a support group in a text." After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask provides aid and comfort to survivors wondering if the disease will come back and what happens next. In discussions with numerous advocates for breast cancer research, the author finds that these "patients are basically all in the same boat. Mayer's final advice is to grab an oar and keep rowing," according to Library Journal reviewer Bette-Lee Fox.

Mayer once told CA: "Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter is an amalgam of biography, autobiography, family history, and art writing, a cri de couer that must have originated somewhere in the lonely, bookish childhood I spent trying to attract the attention of a brilliant and obsessed painter, who happened to be my father. The book represents a reconciliation of my father's influence and memory and legacy in my life. My second memoir, The Waiting Room, [actually published as Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery] is a very personal account of what it's like to have breast cancer: from mastectomy, through chemotherapy, and on to reconstructive surgery and recovery. This book tries to breach the isolation women feel with breast cancer and show the experience, reaching out to the 175,000 American women who will join me this year in this involuntary sisterhood.

"Now I am beginning to explore another family's trauma, focusing on the impact of having—and losing—a child to severe birth defects. This is a story that touches on medical and ethical issues as well as being a poignant story of ordinary people coping with extraordinary circumstances."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

ARTnews, October, 1988, Eleanor Heartney, review of Night Studio: A Memoir of Philip Guston by His Daughter, p. 93.

Arts Magazine, March, 1989, Corinne Robins, review of Night Studio, p. 111.

Booklist, October 1, 1993, William Beatty, review of Examining Myself: One Woman's Story of Breast Cancer Treatment and Recovery, p. 226.

Boston Globe, September 14, 1988, Robert Taylor, review of Night Studio, p. 34.

Houston Chronicle, December 18, 1988, Patricia Johnson, review of Night Studio, p. 14.

Library Journal, October 1, 1993, Janet Coggan, review of Examining Myself, p. 122; April 1, 2003, Bette-Lee Fox, review of After Breast Cancer: Answers to the Questions You're Afraid to Ask, p. 121.

Newsweek, September 26, 1988, Cathleen McGuigan, review of Night Studio, p. 74.

New York Times Book Review, December 18, 1988, Jill Johnston, review of Night Studio, p. 25.

Oncology Nursing Forum, July, 2000, Lynn Borstelmann, review of Advanced Breast Cancer: A Guide to Living with Metastatic Disease, pp. 996-997.

Publishers Weekly, August 30, 1993, review of Examining Myself, p. 82.

San Francisco Chronicle, October 2, 1988, Kenneth Baker, review of Night Studio, p. 1.

Times Literary Supplement, April 5, 1991, Rim Hilton, review of Night Studio, p. 20.

Women's Review of Books, January, 1994, Naomi Schneider, review of Examining Myself, p. 1.

ONLINE

Association of Community Cancer Centers, http://www.accc-cancer.org/ (February 18, 2004), "Patient Advocate: Musa Mayer."

Oncology Nursing Society Patient-Education Web Site, http://www.onconurse.com/ (February 18, 2004), Nancy Keene, "Meet Activist Musa Mayer."

WebMD, http://www.webmd.com/ (February 18, 2004), "Biography: Musa Mayer."