The Department of Lost and Found (Book Review)

If I said that I was lost but now am found, would you believe me? In either case, my most sincere apologies to all for the disappearance/delay.

Some things are not to be missed (I might be entirely forgetable, but is this book?)

In her book The Department of Lost and Found, author Allison Winn Scotch takes on the challenge of how a person meets their own mortality. She chooses a thirty-something woman in politics, Natalie Miller, as her main character and takes on questions about the meaning of life, love, family and friendship. Ready or not, she takes us along on one woman's battle with cancer. Is there life after breast cancer for an ambitious young woman left all alone? What does it take to get through a situation that sends shivers of fear through any man or woman faced with disfigurement, or worse, death?

What happens when the one person you thought you could count on calmly tells you he can't be there for you in your moment of greatest need? What do you do if you discover that you are not the person you wished you were? What if you begin to question your own worthiness as you face the darkest and most difficult challenge of your life?

Ms. Scotch summarizes all of this very succinctly in the first paragraph of her book with the words: "Though, really, who can blame me for moping? I was diagnosed with wretched cancer, and my boyfriend dumped me, and the office won't return my calls."

With each sentence the reader asks, "Could I deal with that? And that? And that?"

On top of it all, what could possibly make you laugh in such a frightening situation?

What is funny about revealing to your friends that you had added Bob Barker to the list of "the five people you could sleep with, even if you were married, and face no consequences"?

I can hear you saying to yourself, "Nothing! I'd rather be dead than..."

Most of us would say that there is nothing funny about sleeping with Bob Barker-that we could not deal well with such terror. The terror, I mean, of cancer; and so the journey begins. Don't you want to know how a person could handle all that? I did.

It doesn't take long, though, to find out that our hero, Natalie Miller, is as selfish and morally deficient as we suspect all politicians must be. Politics, that's her career. Who doesn't love to hate a politician? Or even a political aide? Aren't they the fall guys for the corrupt and morally bankrupt politicians? True to form, at times, Natalie is so hard to like that it's difficult to care whether or not she lives or dies. Is it possible for a dying woman to care more about her job supporting a self-centered senator than about a friend for life?

 I almost quit reading because I didn't want to spend my time with a person-albeit fictional-that I so disliked.

Still, I confess to a macabre fascination. Natalie's dialogues with her diary, as deeply introspective as only a dying person's internal conversations can be, kept me going.  That, along with Ms. Scotch's talent for infusing humor throughout the story of a person who is faced with a disease that strikes fear into the hearts of us all, kept me going.

Can we laugh in the face of death?

Is this fragile life, for us fallible humans, worth the fight? Read The Department of Lost and Found if you want secret insight into one woman's answers to those questions.