My Balls Are Killing Me

Part cancer log, part love wreck, part pinball machine. When a hard little marble shows up where it shouldn't, our narrator-reluctant adult and world-class avoider-gets launched into an arcade of scans, surgery, and sleepless 3 a.m. bargains. Then the strangest guide arrives: Athena, the wisecracking guardian angel his removed testicle becomes, who refuses to let him hide. "Keep the ball in play," she says-and the flippers start flying.

Hospitals morph into arenas; relationships tilt; denial runs out of tokens. Between chemo chairs, marital crosswinds, and surreal visitations, he learns to tell the messy truth-to doctors, to lovers, and finally to himself. Rude, tender, and weirdly uplifting, My Balls Are Killing Me is a screwball survival story with a punk heart-rooted in the author's own run-in with testicular cancer and the aftershocks it sent through his body, marriage, and sense of self.

If you like memoirs that swerve from jet-black comedy to raw honesty, myth slipped under a hospital gown, and a finale that finds nerve when the nerves are shot, welcome to the game.