Gorilla in the Room and Other Stories
Ed Tracy was the perfect candidate for cancer. Intensely motivated and a tireless innovator, the non-stop pace led to high anxiety, erratic sleep patterns and a life-altering medical diagnosis unlike that of anybody else. Rule No.1: Nobody’s cancer journey is the same.
Growing impatient and irritable, he began to imagine an oncology ward on a Broadway stage with costumes and music and patients and hope. When he needed to check out of chemotherapy, he checked into imaginary rehearsals of a musical comedy.
Along the way, he realized the treatments made his memories sharp. He began to periodically track his cancer journey and encouraged friends to get cancer screenings. Soon he was delving into his past-growing up in farm country, acting in college theatre and remembrances of inspirational friends and mentors. Each scene found its place in an act of the musical, and the result is “Gorilla in the Room and Other Stories.”
These wide-ranging, homespun stories, mixed with family drama and the humor of a skilled storyteller, will appeal to lovers of nature, theater fans, and military enthusiasts and honors the courageous patients, family members and service providers facing life-threatening challenges, aging and a future where they are themselves becoming mentors for the next generation.
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Ed Tracy is an award-winning broadcast veteran, writer, editor, and host of Conversations with Ed Tracy, a Chicago-based cultural series of thoughtful and engaging discussions with authors, performing artists and other arts-based leaders. Tracy was the founding executive director, and later president and CEO, of the Pritzker Military Library in Chicago that received the 2009 National Medal for Museum and Library Services and was recognized five times by the Webby Awards for outstanding programming, including Pritzker Military Presents and Medal of Honor with Ed Tracy. A recipient of a Chicago Midwest Regional Emmy Award and the Norwich University Board of Fellows Service Medallion, Tracy is a graduate of the University of Vermont with a bachelor of arts degree in theater and communications, and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the National Press Club, and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Gorilla in the Room and Other Stories is his first book. Review platform: PicksInSix(R) Website: conversationswithedtracy.com