By Chuck O’Donnell
Soon after being diagnosed with breast cancer at 43, Jennifer Hayden was determined to tell her story. From flat-chested and forlorn, to self-conscious schoolgirl, to blissful late bloomer, to proud provider of mother’s milk — she realized that her breasts were a sort of biological timeline through which she could trace her life.
In the end, however, Ms. Hayden’s new graphic novel, “The Story of My Tits,” is the story of one woman who finds who she really is at heart only after she loses her breasts to a double mastectomy.
”Breast cancer taught me that I am not my tits. My breasts. My cans,” said Ms. Hayden, who will be taking part in a panel discussion, “Graphic Lives: Women in Comics,” on Oct. 29 at 6 p.m. at Labyrinth Books in Princeton. “We have so many words for them. They are a source of joy and life, but in the end they became just troublesome fat blobs and I’m glad to be rid of them.
”It helped that I had a terrific mate (named Jim) who never altered for a moment the way he treated me. A woman in her 40s and now, a decade after I started the book, I’m in my 50s — (she) is questioning her femininity all the time, anyway. She just has to realize she has this inner magnetism, intelligence, humor, resilience, that is where her sexiness comes from.”
And talent, too. Ms. Hayden has been a breath of fresh air to comic books’ more adult and alternative cousin, comix, since her first graphic novel, “Underwire,” was published in 2011.
The births and deaths, joys and sorrows, loves and loves lost are all captured with a mix of sweetness and sarcasm and brought to life with her scratchy art style. Ms. Hayden has packed it all in by using two or three streams of information in each panel, be it narration, word balloons or small notations.
But her true gift is her willingness to lay her whole life bare. There’s her complicated relationship with her emotionally unavailable mother, her feelings toward her father and his not-so-secret affair, the ups and downs of a long-term relationship with Jim. The grand events, the tiny moments — the honesty of the work is what makes her book compelling and intimate.
”The issues raised in this book about family, aging, body image, and illness may be uncomfortable, but all of us, young and old, have to face them sometime,” says Top Shelf editor Leigh Walton. “I’m so grateful that Jennifer’s here to help.”
While you could trace the book’s genesis to the moment Ms. Hayden was being told what ductal carcinoma is over the phone, the scars from a double mastectomy ultimately weren’t the only wounds that needed to be healed.
”This book was cathartic for me because it allowed me to sort out some old family issues and at the same time get some closure on my breast cancer experience,” Hayden said.
”By the time I wrote this book, certainly by the time I finished writing it, I saw my father and his second wife in a very different light, and my mother with way more compassion for all the moral gray areas people find themselves in as time goes on.”
Steadfast through it all was Jim. He is sometimes depicted as her imaginary knight in shining armor riding to her rescue, like the moment where Hayden is trying to figure out how she can take a much-needed post-operative shower.
Jim ducks into his closet and emerges with one of his old ties. He affixes it around her waist in a way so that tubing draining fluid from her body is pushed out of the way. After the shower, she reaches for Jim and tells him, “You know that was the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for me.”
They slung the tie over the shower bar to dry and decided to never take it down. It’s become a symbol of the tie that binds husband and wife.
”We absolutely took it with us to our new house last December and slung it over the outrageously foul Arabian-oil-magnate light fixture we can’t afford to replace over the master bathroom sink,” Ms. Hayden said. “(There’s) a little dust on top, but the tie looks great.”
The book is likely to resonate with people during October, when Breast Cancer Awareness month causes many to reflect on what the disease and all the pain, sadness and even guilt in brings. Ms. Hayden says the guilt can be especially tough.
”I hope they resist the urge to beat themselves up for what happened to them,” she said. “You can eat well, exercise, never drink alcohol, whatever, and still get breast cancer. It’s not our fault.”
Labyrinth Books is located at 122 Nassau St., Princeton. The panel also will include cartoonists Glynnis Fawkes and Summer Pierre, and will be moderated by Gil Roth. For more information, call 609-497-1600.
