Fighting a killer disease, in killer heels

"Cancer Vixen: A True Story"
by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
Knopf, 212 pp., $22

Even before its release, Marisa Acocella Marchetto's "Cancer Vixen" was a huge hit in the blogosphere, generating a tsunami of buzz based on the advance its author received (reportedly one of the highest ever for a graphic novel), the immediate sale of the movie rights (Cate Blanchett is already penciled in to star in the title role), and the photogenic micro-culture at its center (Page Six glitterati browsing and being seen at the trendiest of chic downtown watering holes).

Nonetheless, it's weird terrain for a comic book: A fortysomething New Yorker with no health insurance learns she has breast cancer on the eve of her wedding to her dreamboat "fidanzato," a charming, generous, extremely Italian restaurateur. Among the unlikely anti-Marvel Comics panels: a breast being "squeezed, squished, slammed and jammed" during a mammogram; detailed drawings and descriptions of chemo procedures, biopsy needles and test tubes; sobering statistics about breast cancer.

What makes it work is the funny, disarming superheroine of the title — Marchetto herself, determined to be a Vixen and not a Victim, and living an ordinary life (considering that she is a cartoonist for The New Yorker and Glamour, as well as the now-wife of a food celebrity, Silvano Marchetto, who drives a Maserati and has published his own cookbook) and struggling with ordinary problems as she comes to grips with a potentially life-threatening disease.

Among the central characters is the adorable Silvano, proprietor of the celebrity-studded West Village restaurant that bears his name, Da Silvano. Also irresistible in her own way is Marchetto's domineering mother, or "(s)mother," as she is affectionately dubbed. On the fringes are legions of hip Manhattan BFFs (best friends forever, if you didn't know) — fellow cartoonists, editors at big fashion magazines, "It" Manhattanites of every stripe.

Because of course this isn't really an ordinary life: it's a life lived always on the fringes of celebrity, a sort of "Cancer in the City" for the modern woman. Marchetto dabbles in Kabbalah and alternative therapies, visits a quack, grapples with a "rival cartoon girl," adores expensive shoes, and suffers the insolent barbs of the shallow supermodels who flock to Da Silvano. Oddly enough, considering the subject matter, "Cancer Vixen" is tremendous fun, bubbly and sweet and optimistic. Like her husband, whose favorite phrase seems to be "che bella giornata!" (what a beautiful day!), Marchetto counts her blessings and loves her complicated, high-heeled life.