Promise Me: How a Sister's Love Launched the Global Movement to End Breast Cancer »

NANCY G. BRINKER is the founder and CEO of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. She has served as Ambassador to Hungary and United States Chief of Protocol and is currently the Goodwill Ambassador for Cancer Control for the United Nations World Health Organization.  She has been the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. Visit Nancy at nancygbrinker.com.

JONI RODGERS is the New York Times bestselling author of Bald in the Land of Big Hair, a memoir of her cancer treatment and recovery.

Suzy and Nancy Goodman were more than sisters. They were best friends, confidantes, and partners in the grand adventure of life. For three decades, nothing could separate them. Not college, not marriage, not miles. Then Suzy got sick. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1977; three agonizing years later, at thirty-six, she died.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. The Goodman girls were raised in postwar Peoria, Illinois, by parents who believed that small acts of charity could change the world. Suzy was the big sister—the homecoming queen with an infectious enthusiasm and a generous heart. Nancy was the little sister—the tomboy with an outsized sense of justice who wanted to right all wrongs. The sisters shared makeup tips, dating secrets, plans for glamorous fantasy careers. They spent one memorable summer in Europe discovering a big world far from Peoria. They imagined a long life together—one in which they’d grow old together surrounded by children and grandchildren.
Suzy’s diagnosis shattered that dream.

In 1977, breast cancer was still shrouded in stigma and shame. Nobody talked about early detection and mammograms. Nobody could even say the words “breast” and “cancer” together in polite company, let alone on television news broadcasts. With Nancy at her side, Suzy endured the many indignities of cancer treatment, from the grim, soul-killing waiting rooms to the mistakes of well-meaning but misinformed doctors. That’s when Suzy began to ask Nancy to promise. To promise to end the silence. To promise to raise money for scientific research. To promise to one day cure breast cancer for good. Big, shoot-for-the-moon promises that Nancy never dreamed she could fulfill. But she promised because this was her beloved sister.
I promise, Suzy. . . .  Even if it takes the rest of my life.

Suzy’s death—both shocking and senseless—created a deep pain in Nancy that never fully went away. But she soon found a useful outlet for her grief and outrage. Armed only with a shoebox filled with the names of potential donors, Nancy put her formidable fund-raising talents to work and quickly discovered a groundswell of grassroots support. She was aided in her mission by the loving tutelage of her husband, restaurant magnate Norman Brinker, whose dynamic approach to entrepreneurship became Nancy’s model for running her foundation. Her account of how she and Norman met, fell in love, and managed to achieve the elusive “true marriage of equals” is one of the great grown-up love stories among recent memoirs. 

Nancy’s mission to change the way the world talked about and treated breast cancer took on added urgency when she was herself diagnosed with the disease in 1984, a terrifying chapter in her life that she had long feared. Unlike her sister, Nancy survived and went on to make Susan G. Komen for the Cure into the most influential health charity in the country and arguably the world. A pioneering force in cause-related marketing, SGK turned the pink ribbon into a symbol of hope everywhere. Each year, millions of people worldwide take part in SGK Race for the Cure events. And thanks to the more than $1.5 billion spent by SGK for cutting-edge research and community programs, a breast cancer diagnosis today is no longer a death sentence. In fact, in the time since Suzy’s death, the five-year survival rate for breast cancer has risen from 74 percent to 98 percent.

Promise Me is a deeply moving story of family and sisterhood, the dramatic “30,000-foot view” of the democratization of a disease, and a soaring affirmative to the question: Can one person truly make a difference?

The Washington Post - Nora Krug

Brinker is more than a little proud of her own moxie…and the book is as much an ode to her own chutzpah and accomplishments as it is a compelling tale of living with cancer&#$8230;For those of us who have watched loved ones endure the disease, Brinker's chutzpah on our behalf is much appreciated.

Note from the Author

Note from the Coauthor

I SUZY 1

1 Where Will Meets Way 3

A Brief History of the Beast 12

2 Founder Effect 17

The Storyteller's Mastectomy 31

3 The Goodman Girls 37

Little Pearl Harbor 49

4 Women of the World 54

Forever Blonde 76

5 May Queen at Neiman Marcus 82

Cents and Sensibility 98

6 We All Fall Down 103

Mystery and Method 116

7 Wake Up, Little Suzy 121

Semper Pink 130

8 Make It Last 135

II EVOLUTION 153

9 A Seal Upon Thy Heart 155

When You Hear Hoofbeats 166

10 Flying into Love 173

Love and Other Cannonballs 184

11 Outside the Box 188

I Hope You Dance 201

12 Follow the Leader 205

The First Lady 212

13 Run the Good Race 217

Living one Step Ahead 231

14 Purpose in Perspective 237

Love Will Find A way 246

15 To Market, To Market 252

From Point a to Point B 270

16 My Kingdom for a Horse 275

III REVOLUTION 295

17 Bridge of Light 297

Higher Learning 309

18 Pride and Protocol 314

Where we Aren't, Where we are, and Where we want to be 325

19 Promise Me 334

Breast Cancer Timeline 337

Resources for Families Dealing with Breast Cancer 343