STARRED Book Review: Rearranged

Reviewed by Kristine Eckart | Content warnings: cancer

A lyrical memoir chronicling the life-altering vicissitudes of cancer

Kathleen Watt pulls back the curtain on the Metropolitan Opera, giving readers an inside look at the competition, the backstage behaviors, and the culture of the opulent and expansive productions at the famous New York City Opera House. With her pursuit of being in the Extra Chorus finally realized, Kathleen looks forward to celebrating with her partner, Evie, on their ski vacation, but a bump on her gumline brings up the concern that’s usually coupled with any new bump or pain: What is this? Am I overthinking this? Should I be worried? After trips to several dentists and then a few doctors, she learns of her shocking prognosis: cancer. 

“Apparently a rare and vicious malignant tumor was colonizing the sinus cavity behind my cheekbone, breathtakingly tailored to obliterate my profession and my raison d ’etre, never mind my face.” 

Kathleen and Evie face the frightening change of events with research, interviews with medical experts, and a wedding affectionately called the Dancing Day to offset the tension and worry and cement their commitment to facing the “in sickness and in health” part of their vows to each other. Surrounded by her family, sisters Kristina and Martha, brother Donald, and Evie, Kathleen’s first surgery seems to go well. But a postoperative infection threatens her recovery. Over the next several years, Watt’s journey includes endless visits with doctors and over twenty different surgeries and hospital stays, addressing not just the cancer, but reconstructing portions of Kathleen’s face. 

“I was carrying the tumor around the vineyard, ’round and ’round the dance floor, and throughout the entire roomful of love and remembrance and ringing wishes for our long future.” 

Watt’s detailed evaluations of life in the Met Chorus versus life as a cancer patient are expertly composed, comparing her experience of getting prepared for headshots to that of getting CT Scans and X-rays, both a calling card that one takes to every important meeting in that industry. Her artful depictions of darkly humorous moments in her recovery are crafted with the care and flair one would use in staging Puccini’s Turnadot, finding the laughter at her extreme terrified reaction to a nurse putting on gloves, which was dubbed “The Night of the Snapping Gloves.” 

“How could I be so strong in the face of the Big C? But what I felt was nothing like strength. I felt myself carried in a quickening flow, with no choice but to flow with it, learning how to leverage its power along the way. 

“The surgeons would be removing and rearranging pieces of me, both physical and metaphorical. I only hoped they would be able to leave me a little of the music.” 

But after the initial surgeries and the fear of the unknown medical world, Kathleen’s recitation on finding herself again is the hauntingly beautiful aria that will stay with you long after the curtains have closed. Her dedicated recordings, analyzing the tone, the vibration, and the sound of her voice are just the beginning of her journey to regain the beauty and personality of the voice she lost. The juxtaposition of her friends and family getting promotions, getting married, having children, and living the “normal life” is a sharp contrast to Kathleen’s search for eye patches, careful wound packing, obturator cleaning, and a smell of sickness she just can’t seem to wash off. Her journey to find not just her singing voice, but her voice in her world and the world at large is a testament to the difficulty of putting one’s life back together after a trauma like battling a chronic illness. 

“When not altogether obliterating, the process thoroughly absorbed me in its strangeness and the rarified privilege of hovering between life and death, in the company of genius and love, either of which had the power to determine my outcome.” 

Rearranged is a bel canto of a book, full of lyrical language, the crescendo and decrescendo of cancer, and the universal search for one’s voice.

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