Wait Time: A Memoir of Cancer

Sherman's narrative voice is personal but not confessional, practical but not cold, thoughtful and searching but not self-pitying or self-absorbed. The author’s wait time for surgery on a malignant tumor was exceptionally long and riddled with bureaucratic bumbling, and he asks our health-care providers and administrators if the Canadian healthcare system cannot be made efficient and more humane. While he is honest about what is good and bad in the system, he is not stridently political or given to directing blame. His narrative is interwoven with engaging ruminations on the meaning of illness in society, and is peppered with references to other writers’ thoughts on the subject. A widely published poet, Sherman helps the reader understand the deep connection between disease and creativity—the ways in which we write out of our suffering. will be of special interest to anyone facing a serious illness as well as to health-care providers, social workers, and psychologists working in the field. Its thoughtful observations on health, life priorities, time, and mortality will make it of interest to all readers.