BOOK EVENT -- REARRANGED: An Opera Singer's Facial Cancer and Life Transposed
When:
Friday, Oct 20, 2023 5:30p -
6:30p
Friday, Oct 20, 2023 5:30p -
6:30p
Where:
East End Books
Boston Seaport area (300 Pier 4 Blvd., Unit 4 - next to the ICA Museum & Woods Hill Pier 4 Restaurant)
Boston, MA 02118
Admission:
$5-$25
Hosted by:
Categories:
LGBTQ+, Lectures & Conferences, Music, Virtual
Attention lovers of memoir & storytelling, doctors, narrative medicine practitioners, performing artists, opera fans, cancer survivors and their caregivers, join us for a reading, discussion, Q&A, and book signing for Kathleen Watt's debut memoir, Rearranged: An Opera Singer's Facial Cancer and Life Transposed
“In lyrical prose, with musical allusions, clinical references, and a bit of comic relief, Rearranged follows Kathleen Watt's plunge from the operatic stage into the netherworld of hospital life—its indigenous creatures, its peculiar language, its signposts of the mysterious human condition—through the devastation of cancer, and out the other side. Kathleen was a New York opera singer at mid-career, with a steady, lucrative chorus job at the Metropolitan Opera and solo gigs elsewhere, anticipating her best year ever. Instead, a vicious bone cancer [osteosarcoma of the jaw] blew her plans to smithereens, along with her face. She had to let everything go. Bit by bit, through a brutal alchemy of lethal toxins, titanium screws, and infinite kindness, she discovered new arrangements for old pieces, in a life catastrophically transposed. Not only a heart-wrenching medical odyssey, but an ultimately joyous personal journey of transformation.”
About the author: Kathleen Watt sang principal roles with Boston Lyric Opera, Springfield Regional Opera, Utah Opera Company, Opera Works New York, and as a member of the Extra Chorus of the New York Metropolitan Opera, before her singing career was derailed by a diagnosis of osteogenic sarcoma (bone cancer) in the face.
Kathleen will be in conversation with James Fitz Gerald, professor of English and Media Studies at Bentley University. His teaching and research specialize in the medical and health humanities, with a particular emphasis on depictions of illness in American literary culture.
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