Don’t Be a Victim: Be a Vixen
New Yorker cartoonist fights cancer in heels

By ROBIN LINDLEY
Contributing Writer

In May 2004, artist Marisa Acocella Marchetto was 43, succeeding as a cartoonist for The New Yorker, and about to marry renowned New York restaurateur Silvano Marchetto. Then, shortly after her health insurance lapsed, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

In her acclaimed graphic memoir, Cancer Vixen, Marchetto draws herself yelling at the grim reaper: “Listen Cancer, ya sick bastard… NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME!” But she couldn’t ask Death to come back when it was more convenient, so she decided on an alternate plan. “Cancer, I’m going to kick your butt . . . and do it in killer heels.”

Cancer Vixen chronicles Marchetto’s fight with cancer, interactions with family (including her larger-than-life mother—or “(S)mother”), friends (including fellow New Yorker cartoonists), foes (fashion models offering her fiancé “healthy relationships”), and enduring life lessons. The book has been warmly praised for its humor, poignancy, and deft artwork, and for demystifying cancer treatment by showing and explaining procedures such as chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

Augustan Burroughs, author of the best-selling memoir Running with Scissors, wrote: “Cancer Vixen redefines the memoir by expanding what’s possible in the genre. Incredibly bold and brave, inspiring and absolutely packed with life-force, it’s one of the freshest works of autobiography I’ve read in years. Part love story, part survival guide, Cancer Vixen is for everyone who would never read a cancer book.” And recently, Academy Award–winning actor Cate Blanchett signed on to star in a movie version of the book.

Marisa Acocella Marchetto is a New Jersey–born artist best known for her cartoons in The New Yorker, Glamour, and The New York Times. In 1994, she created a cartoon character called “She” for Mirabella magazine. A year later, she published her first graphic novel, Just Who the Hell is She, Anyway? Her drawings are also included in the new cartoon anthology The Rejection Collection, edited by Matt Diffee (“The Luck of the Draw,” Dec. 6).

Marchetto will donate a percentage of the proceeds from Cancer Vixen to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. She also sponsored free screenings for uninsured women at St. Vincent’s Comprehensive Cancer Center (SVCCC) in Manhattan.

During a recent visit to Seattle, Marchetto talked with Real Change about her book, her art, and her cancer experience.

Real Change: Can you describe those frantic weeks between your cancer diagnosis and your wedding?

Marisa Acocella Marchetto: I was diagnosed three weeks before I was married. My career was going well, and I had found the shoes and bag for the wedding dress, and shoes are important for me. And I had to tell my fiancé that the woman he was going to marry has breast cancer. And I also had to tell him I didn’t have insurance. My insurance ended, and I tried to get it back, but it’s difficult when you’re a freelancer.

I was extremely lucky that I got married exactly on time. I had bandages under my wedding dress. In terms of paying for the treatment, I paid for some things, my parents paid for some things. After I got married, I got insurance through my husband. My husband’s premiums went up, and he said I cost him an arm and a leg.

I was lucky because the tumor was found early on. They say early detection saves lives, and it’s true. And I was lucky also because I was able to get insurance.

It could have been much worse. I researched women who don’t have insurance; I found that 49 percent of women who are diagnosed with breast cancer don’t have insurance, and they have a greater risk of dying. That floored me.

RC: Has health insurance coverage improved since your treatment?

Marchetto: Not at all. Universal health care is important to this country, and everyone should write to their member of congress and get the country insured. It’s a crime we can’t take care of our own.

RC: Did you do any medical research for Cancer Vixen?

Marchetto: I did a lot of research on possible causes of breast cancer. I did that board game [in the book]: the Cancer Guessing Game. I asked my doctor why I got breast cancer. Was it 9-11 [pollution from Ground Zero] — because my chest was congested? And he said, “Do you really want to start playing that game?” I went home, Googled breast cancer, and came up with that game [on possible causes of cancer]. And I still have breast cancer causes on Google alert and get three or four responses everyday.

RC: What was supportive to you when you went through treatment?

Marchetto: Besides my five-inch heels that I call my support shoes? My husband and my mother were great. They were so supportive. Those around you are the best medicine in the world. I also worked, and was able to focus on deadlines as opposed to cancer. And that’s one of the reasons I wore those shoes. I wanted to look at something beautiful on my feet instead of the chemo IV that was in my arm. Beauty and making yourself feel good can really help the healing process. I also went to the Kabbalah Center the day I was diagnosed. I began to think about cause and effect, and what we put out there is what we get back. It’s a lesson that stayed with me.

RC: From the book, it seems your sense of humor also was very therapeutic.

Marchetto: When my breast surgeon aspirated the tumor, which means he stuck a thin needle into the tumor and pulled out some cells, he said we need to see if the cells are angry. And I said to myself, angry cancer cells — what would that look like? I saw them as little green meanies flipping me the bird, and that made me laugh, and if I could laugh at them, it made them somehow less threatening. Then I thought if that could help me, maybe it could help other people as well.

RC: Where did you get the idea for the title?

Marchetto: It came from a friend of mine. I met him when I was just diagnosed. I was depressed and I looked like hell, wearing these ratty sneakers. He said, “What are you doing? You look like a victim. Where’s my vixen?” He was like, “Throw out those sneakers and get some high heels, and be a vixen.” I told him that Glamour magazine had asked me to write about [the cancer], and I was thinking of calling it Breast Case Scenarios, so I was thankful he gave me the title Cancer Vixen.

RC: And Cate Blanchett is planning to star in the movie version of your book?

Marchetto: Yes. I’m thrilled because Cate Blanchett is the greatest actress on the planet. I don’t know what stage it’s at, but I know she optioned it.

RC: Could you talk about your influences as a writer and artist?

Marchetto: First of all, my mother was a shoe designer, and I learned to draw by imitating her drawing the women and the shoes. I started when I was three. But I got bored with them because they weren’t saying anything. Then I discovered the work of James Thurber, a big influence on me. Also, the book Harriet the Spy [by Louise Fitzhugh] was one of my favorite books of all time. I also loved Brenda Starr and the paintings of Lichtenstein.

RC: Weren’t you only 8 when you discovered the art of James Thurber?

Marchetto: We were on vacation in Bermuda, and my mother didn’t like the room. She told the resort owner that she wanted something bigger. The owner said OK, we’ll put you on the fringe of the resort in this pink elephant of a house. Nobody wants it, but you can have it. We went there, and on the walls were these beautiful drawings with captions, and it wound up being James Thurber’s house. I stayed up until four in the morning reading The New Yorker and his books. I woke up a few hours later completely covered by red ants. It turns out that the house was infested, but I like to say that’s when I was officially bitten by the cartoonist bug.

RC: Did you have formal art training?

Marchetto: I started art lessons at 4 and began drawing from a live nude model at 11.

RC: That’s really young. You were a child protégé.

Marchetto: They didn’t know what to do with me. But the minute I put charcoal to paper I was fine. I grew up in New Jersey, and I went to art school in college at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

RC: Did you work as a fine artist too?

Marchetto: Not really. I wanted to put work out in the mainstream, in words and pictures. I didn’t know how I would do it. I was an advertising major, and found my way back to cartooning by fluke.

RC: Did you dream of appearing in The New Yorker after discovering Thurber?

Marchetto: Yes. I never thought I’d do it, but I found my way around somehow. Luckily, people I knew and an agent got me in there.

RC: You’re one of the few female artists regularly in The New Yorker.

Marchetto: The thing that’s hard is getting in there. The New Yorker has such high standards, and you could go months without selling a cartoon. The rejection rate for cartoons is about 94 percent. You need to have a really thick skin or drink a lot of alcohol or something. But there’s a lot of camaraderie among the people who do it because we realize how hard it is.

RC: How are you feeling now?

Marchetto: I’m feeling fine. The tour’s fantastic. The response has been phenomenal. And I’ve learned more about treatment. There’s been a lot of give and take from the audience, and it’s great to affect people’s lives and people are affecting mine. I’m going to miss it.

RC: Do you have any other thoughts to share about the cancer experience?

Marchetto: Yeah: don’t be a victim, be a vixen. This experience has changed my life forever in everything I do. I feel I have a greater appreciation for life. Before, I ran around New York City trying to find the next event, the next party. Now I’m not running around anymore.