LONDON – Sophie Kinsella, the best-selling English author of the Shopaholic book series, revealed on social media on April 17 that she had been undergoing treatment for an aggressive and often fatal form of brain cancer.
Kinsella, 54, said she had been diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022, but waited to make the diagnosis public so her children could “hear and process the news privately and adapt to our ‘new normal’”. She has five children with her husband Henry Wickham.
The author added that her condition was stable after a successful operation and she had been ongoing chemotherapy and radiation at University College Hospital in London.
Kinsella, whose real name is Madeleine Wickham, has written a string of hit novels, starting with Confessions Of A Shopaholic in 2000, about a financial journalist in New York City with a serious shopping addiction.
About a decade later, a 2009 movie starring Australian actress Isla Fisher based on the original novel and 2001 sequel Shopaholic Abroad was released.
Since the success of the first novel, nine sequels following the life of protagonist Rebecca Bloomwood have been released, earning Kinsella a loyal following and a reigning position among authors of romantic comedy books.
Kinsella said readers’ response to her latest novel, The Burnout, had “buoyed” her during a difficult time undergoing treatment. The novel, about a couple of worn-out office workers who meet at a dilapidated British seaside resort, was published in 2023.
Glioblastoma is an extremely aggressive brain tumour. There is no cure and most patients do not survive beyond 1½ to two years.
“It’s such a terrible, devastating disease,” said Dr Wajd Al-Holou, a neurosurgeon at University of Michigan Health in the United States. The condition is relatively rare. The National Brain Tumour Society estimated that more than 14,490 Americans were expected to receive a glioblastoma diagnosis in 2023.
Doctors typically try to remove as much of the tumour as possible during surgery, and patients also receive chemotherapy and radiation to try to slow the growth of the cancer. The tumour often grows back.
Glioblastoma occurs most frequently among people aged between 50 and 70, Dr Al-Holou said, and is more common in men than women, for reasons doctors do not fully understand. Doctors are also not certain what causes glioblastoma.
“It’s completely random, it’s out of nowhere,” said Dr Viviane Tabar, chair of the department of neurosurgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre in New York.
Symptoms can develop rapidly and vary depending on where in the brain the tumour is located. People can experience headaches that become more severe over a short period, blurred vision, weakness in an arm or leg, difficulty speaking, memory loss, nausea, vomiting and seizures. Sometimes, people’s personalities seem to change, Dr Al-Holou said.
Kinsella’s long-time publisher, The Dial Press, an imprint of Random House Books, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. NYTIMES
