The Naked Truth About Breast Cancer is an award-winning book for a reason. It's the extraordinary no-holds-barred story of the author's experience of breast cancer written and photographed as it happened. We're right there with her as she undergoes treatment whilst living alone during Melbourne's two years of lockdowns, wondering if the virus would finish her off if the cancer didn't.
There's a direct honesty about what it's really like to go through cancer treatment, and to face mortality for the first time, a willingness to reveal every aspect of the experience. It's as raw as it gets. And it's personal: the author talks directly to her reader, with a sense of warmth – and love – that imbues every page.
It is NOT a how-to book for breast cancer. Instead, its purpose is to empower and inspire the reader to be the heroine of her own journey.
The book is aesthetically beautiful – deliberately so – in defiance of the shame that still exists around this illness and women's bodies.
Jane doesn't flinch from reality: cancer is brutal. At the same time, she documents her 'profound journey into the mystic'. We follow her as she goes deeper and deeper into loss, watching as her devastation becomes a glorious falling in love with life. Jane is able to capture how an experience with cancer can be both powerful and beautiful in spite of everything, showing us that all the cliches are true: in the end, love is the only thing that matters.
This book then is about so much more about breast cancer – it's a love letter to life and living.
