The narrative she encountered then around “battling” cancer and our responsibility for what befalls us – too fat, too indulgent, too negative, “so every death now can be understood as suicide” – led her to examine the business of “wellness”. The book was initially triggered by Ehrenreich’s diagnosis with breast cancer in 2001. Natural Causes continues in the same vein: stay sane, think for yourself. It was groundbreaking then and is still fresh today. Forty years ago, Ehrenreich co-wrote, with Deirdre English, For Her Own Good: 150 Years of the Experts’ Advice for Women. Research revealed that almost every woman over 35 shared the complaint. He announced she had osteopenia, a thinning of the bones. She explains how her doctor had advised her, as an older woman, to have a test for bone density. “Once I realised I was old enough to die,” Ehrenreich, now in her 70s, explains, “I decided that I was also old enough not to incur any more suffering, annoyance or boredom in the pursuit of a longer life.” So, Ehrenreich argues, replace isolating self-absorption and the rejection of small pleasures with a collective celebration of what life, in all its arbitrariness, has to offer. The gurus of Silicon Valley may believe they can become immortal – Ray Kurzweil, AI expert, is “reprogramming” his body by taking 150 pills a day – but death always trumps self-mastery.

And it asks us to show a little humility. It is neither anti-medicine nor anti-prevention it is pro-balance, pro-scepticism and pro-perspective. So when, in Natural Causes: Life, Death and the Illusion of Control, she describes the civil war within our bodies that macrophages may wage – encouraging cancer cells to spread, apparently for no reason other than they can – it may persuade you to rip up your gym membership and eat nothing but cream buns for what’s left of your time on Earth. She also has a surgically precise way with words, a sense of humour and a PhD in cellular immunology. If they so choose, you will depart this world early and possibly painfully control is an illusion.Įhrenreich is a socialist, activist and fighter for universal healthcare, women’s rights and economic justice she is a multi-award-winning investigative journalist and author of more than 20 books, including the seminal bestseller Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-Wage USA (2001). No amount of mindfulness, self-discipline and denial can spare you from your macrophages, the large white blood cells in your tissues that are found especially at the site of infection. Y ou may view your body as a temple – particularly if you exercise ferociously, detox regularly, desist from alcohol, tobacco, sugar and all processed foods and positivity seeps out of every pore – but the indefatigable Barbara Ehrenreich has news for you.

Natural Causes by Barbara Ehrenreich