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It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive | 
 enlarge | Author: Evan Handler
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $8.39
You Save: $16.56 (66%)
New (33) Used (10) from $8.09
Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 112332
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 240
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 5.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 1594489955
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.196994190092
EAN: 9781594489952
ASIN: 1594489955
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A provocative, funny, and whip- smart memoir of how one man learned to find joy in his own life after years of hand-to-hand combat with death.
Actor and author Evan Handlers new book, Its Only Temporary, is both a deeply personal memoir and a series of meditations on life, love, faith, gratitude, and mortality. In closely examining his own triumphs, mistakes, and less-than-ideal relationships since his miraculous recovery from a supposedly incurable leukemia more than twenty years ago, Handler zeroes in on the most profound question facing every human being: How can a person live well with the knowledge that time is limited? In doing so, Handler has created a poignant and wildly funny rumination on the ironies of human existence.
Structured as a collection of incisive and probing autobiographical stories , Its Only Temporary is a startlingly candid portrait of one mans struggle to find love and happiness within a life he knows hes lucky just to have. By turns hilarious and heart-wrenching, blunt and shocking, Handlers defiantly unconventional memoir ultimately succeeds as both a stirring love story and a classic coming-of-age tale. Its Only Temporary celebrates the transformation from boy to maneven if it took Handler more than forty years to get there.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Don't waste your money or your time August 11, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I almost never write book reviews, but this book was so bad I felt the need to tell everyone not to waste their time reading it. The only thing I got out of this is that Evan Handler is an arrogant, self-centered person, who seems to want to share details of his boring sex life. Worse yet, he can't write.
 Didn't even know he was an author! July 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I only knew Evan Handler from Sex and the City. I heard him interviewed and he was talking about his book, he was so funny and entertaining that I ordered his book. Loved it and know my Sister-in-law is loving it too! I would read any of his books!
It's Only Temporary...The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive July 22, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive
I could not put this book down:) Thank you Evan, After not being able to read for almost 8 years after going through Lung Cancer. I picked up A Time On Fire by Evan Handler. I just could not put this book down. When "IT'S ONLY TEMPORARY" CAME OUT HAD TO RUN OUT AND PICK UP MY COPY:)
Absolutely awesome reading. I have never read a more honest telling on ones self in my life. I laughed till I cried. HYSTERICAL, HONEST, FUNNY TO A FAULT, SAD, WITTY, EMOTIONS RUN HIGH. With a happy ever after ending:) Now waiting for the next......And how about a movie combining both books? Shirley Rhodes
Read "Time on Fire" First.... June 22, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
....to gain an understanding of what Evan went through. I wrote an extensive review of his first book on Amazon in 1998, and received a lovely email from Mr. Handler thanking him for my kind words. The review was later deleted (not sure why) but I wrote another short one back in 2000 to make up for it. And here is why: it's a phenomenal story about what it is like to be young and on the cusp of success before it is snatched away from you. Make no mistake - this man should be dead. The survival rates for his type of leukemia in the 1980's were dismal at best. His navigation through treatment and all it's emotions is striking, and made this nurse think twice about how healthcare is delivered.
So what happens when you beat the odds and have to live? You press on. And so he has, and has gained success again in the process - although not nearly what he should have. It should be noted that Evan was on his way to a major acting career when he was young. Matthew Broderick and a host of other young 1980's actors have basically had better careers because he had to drop out of the business for treatment. He should have won his Tony by now...if not his Oscar.
So - the new book. Of course, it's not about his time on Sex and the City. That's only a small portion of what he's been doing since his recovery. So those looking for some insight into that character should read something else. It's about trying to gain self-identity as something other that a patient. Living a life you weren't expecting to have. It's anecdotal (most good writing is) and funny. The story of selling his engagement ring back to Sotheby's made me cry, because beating cancer doesn't preclude you from failed relationships.
As a new mom, I love that he has embraced fatherhood - he's lucky he could have kids after all his treatment. And it was nice to catch up with his progress after all these years. I loved it.
I Highly Recommend This Honest and Heartfelt Book June 19, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Getting a catastrophic illness at a young adult age is like an earthquake: its most dramatic and obvious effects are felt during it, but the more subtle, and largely psychological, aftershocks that follow can be just as far-reaching and dramatic. And they often persist for a lifetime.
As a fellow leukemia and bone marrow transplant survivor, I understand the life-questions and dilemmas that confront this author. We surface from the rubble not knowing how to approach falling in love, our professions, our family, marriage, and having kids, among other things. Issues that aren't a big deal to most of our peers become huge, profound, moral, or spiritual as we grapple with our considerably more uncertain futures.
This theme nuances every story, and in instances where it is more obvious, Mr. Handler plays it out with impressive honesty and grace. You won't find behind-the-scenes "Sex and the City' anecdotes here. What you will find -- elegant reflections on finding love, connecting with other people, and investing in one's life in spite of its uncertainties -- is so much better.
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