Gail Albert

Matters of Chance by Gail Albert

Original copyright 1982
Reprint August 2013
digital copy from NetGalley for review


In New York, Mona, a 34 year-old professor of neurobiology with two sons age 9 & 7 and a husband who is a cardiac surgeon. She feels fortunate to have moved out of Brownsville, leaving her tough Brooklyn childhood behind her. When she discovers she has cancer she needs to reconcile with her own impending mortality. Mona begins a journey into her past and present for relevance and meaning in her life. With the support of her family, she begins to seek treatment including the unconventional, all while trying to recall traumatic childhood events. This is a touching story about terminal illness and reconciliation.
… (meer)

When a successful, happily married scientist is diagnosed with a terminal disease, she begins a series of explorations of her life, both in the past and in the present. Her cardiac surgeon husband supports and encourages her to seek out alternative treatments as a support to the mainstream medical interactions she is undertaking.

While researching alternative methods, she practices meditation, visits faith healers, changes her diet completely and learns that there is some evidence to suggest that by ridding the body of past traumas, it is possible to rid the body of the current trauma of illness.

“I am thirty-four years old, married, a professor of neurobiology; I have two sons, aged nine and seven. I grew up in Brownsville, and I left it behind, and I was diagnosed as having cancer in January. I know that these facts are connected; I have yet to understand how.”

So Mona attempts to recall all that has happened in her past. She grew up in New York in a two-bedroom apartment with her mother, her difficult father and her grandfather. Her best friend was Hannah. “Hannah was my best friend until her father killed her mother with the bread knife when we were eight.”

Remembering these and other traumatic events from her past naturally influences Mona’s family life. She is also trying to cope with a schedule of chemotherapy, coming to terms with the possible outcome of the illness and her regret at having to give up her research. Her children are confused, her husband tries to maintain order, but she is full of doubt.

Set in the 1970s, this book could have been set in any decade. The characters are believable and interesting and the writing engaging. Not an easy subject, but an easy read nevertheless.… (meer)