Sick Joke: Cancer, Japan, and Back Again

Sick Joke is a travelogue told as two journeys at once. Glenn Deir spent two years in Japan working his way through its cultural puzzles, and then received a diagnosis of tonsil cancer that sent him through the puzzles of the medical system.

The book follows both stories side by side, moving between the everyday life of a foreigner in Japan and the experience of illness and treatment. The two strands are kept distinct, and each is given its own space in the narrative.

Published by Breakwater Books, Canada, in 2012, with 218 pages and ISBN-13 9781550813326.