Knopf-Newman, Marcy Jane. Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories into Action. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004. 197 pp.

by Julie Size

Marcy Jane Knopf-Newman's Beyond Slash, Burn, and Poison: Transforming Breast Cancer Stories into Action is a readable and engaging account of twentiethcentury breast-cancer narratives in the United States. The book is focused on women whose writings on breast cancer "explore the symbiotic relationship among culture, politics, and medicine," and whose writings, Knopf-Newman argues, "had an impact and led to changes in public policy or medical practices or both" (5). A major strength of the book is its complex analysis of culture, politics, and medicine deeply informed by not only gender, but also race, class, and global considerations. And, as her acknowledgements attest, the book is indebted to feminist and activist scholarship, and thus, well suited for use in a feminist classroom dealing with feminist narratives or topics such as gender and the body, medicine/ environment, and public policy.