Rocking the Pink: Finding My Rock Star Self on the Other Side of Cancer

A UCLA-trained drama student turned corporate lawyer recounts her erratic, ultimately transcendent tale of being floored by breast cancer—only to reconnect to what really mattered to her. Roppé,[accent] a California native, was certain as a kid that Hollywood was in her future, even roping a brief but important speaking part as Girl One in Oliver Stone’s film The Doors—except that law school intervened, then a stressful career as a civil litigator, marriage and motherhood to two girls. By her mid-30s, Roppé had decided to join a rock band and start singing again, which segued into recording her own songs and making a full-length album with a vanity producer. Yet just as her single “Mama Needs a Girls’ Night Out” began to get some radio time, and she had signed a contract with a London-based record label, Roppé was diagnosed with an aggressive cancer called triple negative breast cancer, requiring an extensive round of chemotherapy and radiation. Looping back and forth in time, Roppé’s narrative can sometimes be flighty, but she makes up for it with enormous energy, humor, and unsinkable optimism. (Mar.)