By Lenore Manderson
Pg. 142
Surface Tensions is an academic text that explores the traumas of surgery, especially the way it shapes personal identity. It also interrogates with the meanings of commonly accepted terms such as “normality” and “healing”.
Pg. 24
Essentially, Manerson says, we are socialized to have a very particular idea of how our body ought to function and what it will be like as it ages. Any disruption to that causes a profound cognitive dissonance and “ushers in an existential reckoning”.
Cancer figures heavily into Manderson’s research. The preface chronicles the story of Perdita, a middle aged woman,who has undergone surgical interventions for both breast and colon cancer. Although her cancer has been removed, her mastectomy scar and colostomy bag affect her ability to engage in intimacy and feel desirable, and she often copes with feelings of embarrassment and awkwardness. Distress about the changes brought about by surgery also figure heavily into the other narratives discussed on this website, making Surface Tensions both a useful theoretical text and a source of narratives in and of itself.