Bald in the Merde

A jaunty, illustrated adventure in the art of wig buying in Provence. Laughing all the way. Available in paperback right here! Soon to be a motion picture starring Susan Sarandon as the woman in the wig. Get your copy of BALD IN THE MERDE while they are still cheap. When French people are in dire circumstances, they tell you they are in "La Merde" (merde means poop). Well, I was in France. In a small town. In chemotherapy. I was in deep Merde. Like French trains, right on schedule, 18 days after the first chemo treatment, my longish blonde hair began taking nightly hikes across the vast plains of my bedclothes, electing residence in messy clumps on the back of my couch and upholstering the jackets of all the friends on whose shoulders I was crying. "Get a wig!" they clamored. "Get yourself a wig." "Me? Ms. Authenticity. You want ME to wear a wig?" I wailed. Soon, great white patches of skin all over my head glared through sparse tufts of what was left of my hair. I looked a sight. "Okay" I shrugged and sighed a mist of exasperation steam onto my looking glass. "I'll get a wig." I went into town to have my head shaved. But I ran into opposition from Jean, my hairdresser. He preferred to snip what was left of my hair to one short centimeter all over my head. Now a cover-up was urgent. I had to do something - and fast! I hurried on up to the local "Capillary Institute" to be fitted for a wig. There, I met Danièle, the town wig monger. And that's when the fun began. Danièle was everything I feared in a person who sells wigs for chemo patients. Her giddy desire to see me topped by some kind of "coiffure" that pleased her (and not me) makes for quite a jolly tale. Happy ending? Find out now. Download BALD IN THE MERDE and decide for yourself. P.S. This book was abridged and appeared in The New York Times Sunday Magazine on May 2, 2010.