No Time to Die - Hardcover

TILBERIS, Liz

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297842366 ISBN 13: 9780297842361

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998

Synopsis

In 1993 Liz Tilberis seemed to have it all. She was a working mother with a family who adored her. As editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar, she lived at the center of the glamorous world of international fashion and was widely recognized as one of the most powerful people in the industry. Her days were filled with fashion shows and glittering parties. Her circle of friends included Karl Lagerfeld and the Princess of Wales. That year she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The therapy succeeded, but the cancer eventually recurred. This time, treatment involved an excruciating and life-threatening bone marrow transplant. Although drained physically and emotionally, Tilberis conducted editorial meetings from her hospital bed. Today, under her leadership, Harper's Bazaar is one of the world's fashion authorities. She also continues to fight on behalf of other cancer sufferers. As president of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund, Liz Tilberis is speaking out about a disease that she believes she developed because of the fertility treatment she underwent years before. This memoir offers a look inside the world of fashion magazines and a candid account of a battle with a debilitating illness.

About this title

Review:

Liz Tilberis, the editor in chief of Harper's Bazaar magazine, was at the pinnacle of her career when diagnosed with ovarian cancer, one of the disease's deadliest forms. ("When ovarian cancer is detected early, the cure rate is high: at least a 90 percent five-year survival rate for Stage I diagnosis. At Stage IV, they tell you to go home and get your affairs in order," she writes.) In 1993, the day after holding a gala holiday dinner for the likes of Ralph Lauren and Donna Karan, Tilberis underwent exploratory surgery that revealed her cancer was at Stage III. Since then, she has survived three recurrences, massive doses of chemotherapy, and a bone marrow transplant.

Tilberis's book is notable not only for the sanguine humor which she injects throughout, but also for her honesty regarding what she suspects was the cause of her cancer: fertility treatments with the hormone-stimulating drugs Clomid and Pergonal, which she points out are still widely used. (She never conceived a child, but is the mother of two adopted sons.) Tilberis is especially cutting with her descriptions of her coworkers' chilliness and lack of empathy when she first returned to work. It seems that AIDS causes notwithstanding, the world of fashion is still incapable of admitting there is suffering in the world. Tilberis also deserves praise for confessing that her infertility is due to fallopian tube scarring from pelvic inflammatory disease--often caused by sexually transmitted diseases.

No Time to Die and Liz Tilberis are inspiring. While her cancer is in no certain way vanquished, Tilberis chooses to treat it as a chronic condition, not a killer. She's made it her mission to use her magazine platform and her position as president of the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund to raise awareness of a complicated and frightening--but possibly preventable--disease. This book is as much a tale of survival and sang-froid as it is an excoriation of the cruelties of the two-faced world of fashion.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Ovarian cancer and the world of fashion are strange bedfellows in this autobiography by the editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar. A curious combination, but one the author pulls off with intelligence and flair (and the assistance of a talented writer). The book opens with a description of the ultimate New York party, with Tilberis celebrating her acknowledged success as the editor brought over from England to revive the Hearst fashion magazine. Here were Calvin and Ralph, supermodels and movie stars gossiping and enjoying themselves, even as Tilberis and her husband hid the fact that tomorrow she would face life-or-death surgery. She did not die, and indeed recovered sufficiently to receive an award presented by her friend, Diana Princess of Wales, at Lincoln Center. But the cancer returned, treated with what was then a radical therapy, a bone marrow transplant. Her hair fell out, her nails fell off, and she lost the weight that had led one reporter to call her ``bovine.'' Tilberis continues to receive chemotherapy from time to time to stave off recurrence of the cancer, but she also continues her work at Bazaar. Indeed, much of the book is devoted to amusing and unpretentious tales of her climb from art student to international fashion force, including fashion shoots with models wrapped in bandages or where games of strip Ping-Pong whiled away down times. Along the way, she acquired a devoted husband and two adopted children. Its the fertility drugs that she took in early efforts to become pregnant that she names as the cause of her villainous cancer, a theory that has some support in the medical community. A lively, unflinching, and informative account of a woman's bout with ovarian cancer that could kick off the kind of campaign that made breast cancer a priority in women's health studies. (b&w photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0297842366
• ISBN 13: 9780297842361
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1