A shocking memoir from one of our most esteemed cancer scientists
As first reported in
And heard on
“When I first heard about this book I wanted to read it. tragic, terrible and sad. It’s different from any other cancer book that I have read. it made me cry and that was awesome."
— Pamela Paul, New York Times
“The mystery of how Rollins succumbed to Weeks’ resolute denial, and why he helped his wife avoid treatment for the malady which would kill her is at the center of Rollins’s memoir.”
— Jessica Bartlett, Boston Globe
“compulsively readable... ELOQUENT… attempts to explain why He yielded such unwavering control to his wife... A PAINFULLY MOVING MEMOIR”
— Kirkus
“Thank you for taking the emotional risks of being self-revelatory in this way , AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR WORK.”
- Brian Lehrer, WNYC
BARRETT ROLLINS
IN SICKNESS
A Memoir
“A riveting story, unexpected and all too human, about marriage, illness, and the secrets we feel compelled to keep. It’s a reminder that cancer effects the psyche just as much as it does the body.” — Siddartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Emperor of All Maladies
“A painfully moving memoir… Other people’s marriages are often incomprehensible, but this is an eloquent, compulsively readable account… The author also attempts to explain why he yielded such unwavering control to his wife.” — Kirkus Reviews
“Why would a distinguished cancer doctor conceal her own cancer? Her husband ponders this conundrum in a book that is by turns loving and angry, as well as disturbing and blisteringly honest.” — Anne Fadiman, author of The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
“In Sickness is both a medical case study and a psychological thriller: we want to know both how and why she managed to keep such an obvious physical symptom from him for ten years. We also want to know why a renowned researcher in the field of breast cancer would let her own illness develop without treatment.” — Helen Epstein, author of Getting Through It: My Year of Cancer during Covid
“A unique story of love and commitment that captures our mind and heart from the very first pages and shows us the depth of human resilience under extraordinary circumstances. A remarkable work that illuminates and inspires.” — Jerome Groopman MD, Recanati Professor, Harvard Medical School, Author, How Doctors Think
Jane Weeks and Barrett Rollins were married Harvard University cancer doctors who succumbed to a shared delusion that shocked the Harvard medical world. As the pair went about their public roles as celebrated authorities on cancer treatment, they concealed Weeks’ metastatic breast cancer and delayed treatment until it was too late.
Rendered with the attention to detail one would expect from a world famous scientist and scholar revealing his most closely guarded secret, IN SICKNESS is borne of Dr. Barrett Rollins’ burning desire for understanding and, perhaps even, judgment.
For it constitutes his first public admission that during the years leading up to his wife’s shocking death, the widely admired Chief Scientific Officer of the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and board member of the Interlochen Center for the Arts was drowning in fatal submission, suicidal ideation, and acquiescence to his own buried fury. It is his first acknowledgment that he “stood by idly” as his wife faced mortality alone, without a shred of real medical support; that he, Dr. Barrett Rollins, the illustrious Harvard cancer doctor, allowed his wife to be swallowed alive by a perfectly concealed case of metastatic breast cancer.
Set to be one of thIS SEASON’s most talked about books…
NY TImes columnist Pamela Paul joined Harvard cancer luminary, Dr. Barrett Rollins and members of The ‘Quin House for a conversation about In Sickness.
IN SICKNESS will appeal to those who inhaled the memoir When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, and enjoyed the 2021 black-comedy and HBO miniseries Landscapers.
The Bergmanesque, Harvard University hospital-set love story is a 21st century study of intimacy, morality, partnership, and horror as the charismatic Weeks succumbs to her illness, and Rollins, weighed down not least by the daily need to change the elaborate bandaging around his wife’s massive tumor, stoically takes acquiescence to Weeks’ demands to its logical conclusion, until her passing frees him from everything except his implacable conscience.
photo: Rick Wenner
Buy on Amazon
Book Poster