If you can’t picture yourself laughing about death, read “Almost Family,” a debut novel by Ann Bancroft.
The Land Park writer will have you chuckling along with the characters as they face death from various forms of cancer. But it’s not a cancer book.
“The topic isn’t cancer, it’s about relationships,” says Bancroft, 71, who twice battled cancer. “We all live until we die and, surprise, we’re all going to die. I wanted to make it easier to discuss death, to make people more comfortable with illness and dying, so I tried to use humor. Cancer’s not one thing. You’re still worried about what’s for dinner. You’re still a whole person.”
Ann Bancroft
Photo by Aniko Kiezel
With a background in journalism and communications, Bancroft worked decades with a “just the facts” approach. Fiction was a new challenge in retirement.
She graduated from high school in San Francisco and attended UC Berkeley. Her first job was writing about fashion for the Oakland Tribune. She learned much, moved to the newsroom as a reporter, then to the San Francisco Chronicle.
After years of freelance work and wire-service reporting, Bancroft filled in on the Bee’s editorial page and discovered she loved writing opinions. Her work impressed then-Secretary of Education Gary Hart, who hired her as a press person.
Bancroft next became a speech writer and communications director for the state superintendent of schools. Her working life stopped in 2008 with a breast cancer diagnosis.
“At that point, I was scared and I thought, maybe I only have a couple years. I don’t want to spend it in a windowless office,” Bancroft says, a feeling shared by her novel’s lead character.
“Almost Family” isn’t about her cancer experience. But the illness inspired Bancroft to try something new. She took a short story class with Jodi Angel and private classes with Portland writing guru Tom Spanbauer.
Bancroft would read drafts to Spanbauer, who suggested ways to shake her reporter habits, such as summarizing instead of using detail.
With the novel nearly finished, Spanbauer told her to submit it to three agents. Bancroft reluctantly complied and nabbed one.
The agent didn’t work out. Bancroft shelved the project, then sent it to the 2018 San Diego Book Awards for unpublished novels. She won. With new confidence, she still couldn’t find a publisher.
After fighting cancer again, she sent the novel to She Writes Press, a hybrid publisher for women authors distributed by Simon & Schuster. A relationship was born.
“It was a great experience,” Bancroft says. “The other authors are so supportive of each other and so generous about sharing what they’ve learned.”
“Almost Family” hit the market in May and generated positive feedback.
“People really want to talk about this and it feels really good to have a vehicle to inspire those discussions,” Bancroft says. “I wasn’t interested in writing about my own cancer journey, but because I’ve had so much experience with it, I wanted a way people could discuss going through a shared experience, a way of bonding closely. Then you start writing and things come out and it takes on a life of its own.”
For information, visit annbancroftauthor.com.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
