Description:
A man's epic voyage through sickness, treatment, and a global health crisis
Brief description: David A. Snow is a distinguished professor emeritus in sociology at the University of California, Irvine. Before joining UCI in 2001, he taught at Southern Methodist University (1975-76), the University of Texas, Austin (1976-1987), and the University of Arizona (1987-2001), where he was head of the Department of Sociology for almost a decade. He earned a BA from Ohio University, a MA in urban studies from the University of Akron, and his PhD in sociology from UCLA.His teaching and research have concentrated on collective behavior and social movements; socioeconomic marginality with an emphasis on homelessness; social psychology with a focus on framing processes, conversion, and identity; religion and the persistence of belief; and ethnographic field methods. He is the author or co-author of numerous articles and chapters on these topics, and of twelve academic books, including the award-winning Down on Their Luck: A Study of Homeless Street People (with L. Anderson).Dr. Snow is past president of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction and the Pacific Sociological Association, and vice president of the American Sociological Association. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and a recipient of numerous scholarly awards, including the American Sociological Association's 2025 W.E.B. Du Bois Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, the association's highest honor.He is a veteran who was drafted into the US Army in the late 1960s and was employed afterward for a year as a juvenile parole officer in Cleveland prior to initiating his graduate studies. He was married for thirty-seven years to his late wife, Judy, who succumbed to a long battle with cancer, and has been with his current partner and wife, Roberta, for the past twenty years. He has three children and four grandchildren. In addition to relishing the time he spends with them, he enjoys reading widely, cooking, particularly French and Italian cuisine, lap swimming, walking, listening to music of all kinds, and traveling and hanging out with Roberta and family.
Review Quotes:
"In this engrossing book of vulnerabilities and social support, David Snow, a prominent sociologist, bravely shares his cancer experience, combined with the disruption of contracting a serious case of COVID and the less commonly seen description of being in a clinical trial with major side-effects. Insights from medical writers and sociologists are wisely interspersed but never break up the narrative. Anyone suffering from cancer can learn about the inner, social, family, and biomedical lives of the sick person. Social scientists can learn the experience of illness through creative autoethnography. Physicians and nurses can learn about the travails of navigating a complexity of different treatments and the kind of support their patients need."
-Phil Brown, PhD, distinguished professor of sociology and director, Social Science Environmental Health Research Institute, Northeastern University
"A captivating read about the odyssey of a cancer survivor who writes in liminal prose about the boundary between wellness and cancer and the changes that come with that transition. He compellingly describes this journey of dealing with cancer, fighting COVID during the treatment, and the successes and complications of participating in a clinical trial. I found it thoughtful and eminently readable."
-Susan O'Brien, MD, hematologist/oncologist and professor at UC Irvine School of Medicine
"Professor Snow's up close account of his cancer odyssey during the COVID-19 era brings to bear his career's worth of experience as a social scientist, offering keen sociological insight into his and his loved ones' grappling with cancer-the 'emperor of all maladies.' This book peels back the curtain on the realities of navigating serious illness, illuminating experiences that are both deeply personal and profoundly shaped by broader social forces. Snow has something to teach all of us about such a journey, whether you are a clinician, researcher, patient, or supporting a loved one through their own healthcare odyssey."
-Daniel Smithers, MD, MS, attending internist at Brigham & Women's Hospital and research fellow at Harvard Medical School
"As a physician and cancer survivor, I thought the feelings and challenges presented in A Cancer Odyssey would be old hat for me. Instead, I was so impressed and amazed by Dr. Snow's masterful evaluation and dissection of those feelings and issues, and by his profound insights. He is a skilled raconteur as well! I wish I had this book as I went through my own cancer odyssey!"
-Jevelyn Yonchar, MD, diplomat of the American Board of Internal Medicine