cover image Time Flies When You're Alive: A Real-Life Love Story

Time Flies When You're Alive: A Real-Life Love Story

Paul Linke. Carol Publishing Corporation, $16.95 (175pp) ISBN 978-1-55972-183-7

First presented as a one-man show in Los Angeles, this candid, lovingly humorous tribute to actor Linke's musician wife, ``Chex,'' recounts the valiant, two-year battle she waged against breast cancer until her death, at age 37, in 1986. The moving narrative follows the couple's vicissitudes as the strong-willed wife, a champion of ``undiluted experience,'' undergoes three somewhat arduous home births and surgery on a cancerous breast. Refusing post-operative chemotherapy and radiation, Chex chose a long succession of ineffective alternative treatments, from Mexican clinics to visualization. While the author, now remarried, acknowledges the strain her illness placed on their relationship, he writes that the birth of a daughter a year before Chex's death renewed their faith in each other and in the miracle of life itself. (July)