Summary

Chapter 11 begins with the author announcing the death of his mother, Lillian, on July 1, 2015. In this solemn entry, Alexie discusses the reality surrounding the inevitability of his family’s cancer. Just as his mother’s was a product of the environment in which they grew up, the rest of his family will also be affected. As it is a certain for Alexie, he relates it to a flip of a coin, when he states, “Heads or tails; benign or malignant; weight loss or bloating; morphine or oxycodone; extreme rescue efforts or DO Not Resuscitate; live or die” (51).

Later, Alexie reflects on the hostel nature of cancer. Alexie directly blamed cancer for taking away his mother, especially as she had not been a smoker. In his attempt to reconcile with his mother’s death, Alexie created this poem on cancer that allowed him the...