This “biography” of cancer is interspersed with the evolving narrative of Carla Reed, a contemporary patient of Mukherjee’s, and with recurring visits to the life and career of Dr Sidney Farber, a pioneering cancer specialist who was “the father of chemotherapy”.
Farber, who defied the nihilism of his time by treating childhood leukaemia with drugs, is the central figure of the book, and his work is taken as a metaphor for the advances and for the blind alleys that characterised much of cancer research in the 20th century. (Times) >>>
