Dancing With The Red Devil: A Memoir of Love, Hope, Family and Cancer

Description

'A beautifully written gem of a book, both inspiring and poignant.' Elton John 'Incisive and heart-rending.' Richard E Grant Sarah Standing is a wife, a mother, a journalist, a toy shop owner, a grandmother, a great friend, a daughter, and a lover of life. She does not have the time, or inclination, to deal with cancer. But shit happens. After a week or two of struggling to catch her breath, Sarah pops along to see her GP for a few tests. By the end of the day, she has a bag of what looks like bone broth draining from her body and is dealing with a diagnosis of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. It's cancer, says her doctor, but it's the good kind. Radiating personality from the very first page, this memoir is filled with joy, hope and love, and screams 'FUCK YOU, CANCER' at the top of its lungs. Covering the six months that Sarah undergoes chemo - separated from her family by the laws of lockdown - this book will make you laugh, sob and grab life firmly by the balls so you can live the hell out of it.

Born in 1959 to actress Nanette Newman and writer, actor and director Bryan Forbes, Sarah Standing started her career in writing by winning a Vogue Young Writers competition at the age of fourteen. After six months working on Woman's Own, she spent the next five years freelancing, writing features for The Evening Standard, The Evening News, Ritz Magazine and presenting a weekly radio show for Radio London. In 1984 she married actor John Standing and moved to Los Angeles, taking a seven year writing sabbatical, whilst she gave birth and took care of three children in quick succession. Moving back to London in 1991 she became a contributing editor at Tatler Magazine. In 2002 she began writing features for The Telegraph and had a weekly fashion column on Saturdays, following which she became Travel and Lifestyle editor at The Spectator. Today she writes regular features for GQ, Woman and Home, The Times and the Daily Mail, and co-owns and runs the independent toy shop Starbags in Pimlico.

A wonderful, life-loving, life-living memoir. The fragile line between illness and health is made rock solid by her resilience, by laughter and especially by love. -- Juliet Nicolson This is a book that makes you want to live and love every day. -- Julia Samuel Incisive and heart-rending. -- Richard E Grant Utterly wonderful. With comedy and candour Sarah has delivered a book that I will return to over and over again. -- Susannah Constantine A beautifully written gem of a book, both inspiring and poignant. -- Elton John A grittily charming book. Sarah writes as she speaks: with down to earth honesty and self-depreciating wit. Dancing with the Red Devil should be required reading for anyone whose life has been touched by cancer. -- Trisha Goddard A tremendous book, and a remarkable testament to one woman's pluck, sense-of-humour and steely resolve. -- William Boyd