Naked Truth About Breast Cancer

The Naked Truth About Breast Cancer is an extraordinary book. It's a no-holds-barred diary of the author's experience of breast cancer, written and photographed as it happened.

There's a direct honesty about what it's really like to go through cancer treatment and face mortality for the first time, a willingness to reveal every aspect of the experience. It's as raw as it gets. All of this takes place during Melbourne's two years of lockdowns, with the writer living alone and wondering if the virus would finish off if the cancer didn't.

The book is aesthetically beautiful - deliberately so - in defiance of the shame that still exists around this illness and women's bodies. Above all it's personal: the author talks directly to her reader, the woman going through breast cancer herself, with a sense of warmth - and love - the imbues every page. It is NOT a how-to book for breast cancer. Instead, its purpose is to empower and inspire the reader to be the heroine of her own journey.

Jane doesn't flinch from reality: cancer is brutal. At the same time, she documents her 'profound journey into the mystic'. We follow her as she goes deeper and deeper into loss, watching as her devastation becomes a glorious falling in love with life. Jane is able to capture how an experience with cancer can be both powerful and beautiful in spite of everything, showing us that all the cliches are true: in the end, love is the only thing that matters.