Cancer (21 June - 22 July)

Symbolized by the numbers 6 and 9 caught in the middle of a totally platonic upside-down wrestling match, Cancer writers are ruled by the Moon—or Artemis, as Ancient Greeks knew her—the goddess of fur-babies with people names, outdoor writing retreats, and hyper-nostalgic, guilty-pleasures Spotify playlists. 

Cancers are associated with the chest and therefore prone to chest pains, including muscle cramps, acid reflux, and yes: the inevitable heartache. If anything, love is Cancer Writer’s kryptonite. 

In Herman Hesse’s (July 2, 1877) Siddhartha, the titular ascetic has sworn off worldly pleasures, but slowly sacrifices his strict principles in order to win a girl’s affections. George Orwell’s (June 25, 1903) Nineteen Eighty-Four follows Winston Smith as he plots escape from dystopian Big Brother, but his plan goes awry once he falls for Julia. 

Associated with the Fourth House of the Zodiac, these maternal writers feel most at home, at home. Naturally, the Crab focuses on relationships between parents and children, between siblings, and partners. 

Octavia E Butler’s (June 22, 1947) short story “Blood Child,” from Blood Child and Other Stories centers on the interdependent relationship between an alien race and the human surrogates relied on to carry their offspring. In Nathaniel Hawthorne’s (July 4, 1804) The Scarlett Letter: A Romance, Hester Prynne seeks to reclaim her dignity after birthing a child out of wedlock in 1600’s Puritanical Massachusetts. And Pearl S. Buck’s (June 26, 1892) The Good Earth explores Wang Lung’s wedding day, his family’s poverty, birth complications, addictions and finally their sudden wealth. Though Lung learns too late that his family was the real fortune all along. 

Family oriented as they may be, Cancers are less prolific in one particular genre. Perhaps because when Cancers do write for kids, they can’t help but imbue each story with heaping amounts of pathos and honesty. In E.B. White’s (July 11, 1899) Charlotte’s Web, a motherly spider goes above and beyond to prevent the slaughter of Wilbur the pig. Or Aimee Bender’s (June 28, 1969) collection, The Girl in the Flaming Skirt, and its many surreal modern fables of love and loss. As the wateriest of water signs, Cancers know how to turn sensitivity into their greatest strength, easily committing complicated emotions to paper. 

Because home is such a core theme to Cancers, abandonment, isolation and ostracism are unavoidable by-products as their characters struggle to reclaim the home that’s been stolen from them. 

In Jhumpa Lahiri’s (July 11, 1967) collection, Interpreter of Maladies, the honeymoon is over for several couples as relationships teeter on the verge of collapse. In Franz Kafka’s (July 3, 1883) novella, Metamorphosis, a family struggles to cope with their son’s sudden transformation into a giant bug. And in Alice Munro’s (July 10, 1931) Who Do You Think You Are?, Rose escapes her abusive home, only to return years later to confront her stepmother. 

Often these writers’ protagonists appear hellbent on finding a cause worth dying for. In Hunter S. Thompson’s (July 18, 1937) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, two men search for the illusive American Dream only to resort to self-medicating, and materialism. While Ernest Hemingway’s (July 21, 1899) novella, The Old Man and the Sea tells the story of aging fisherman Santiago, stubbornly risking life, pride and livelihood on one last great haul.

Cancers are capable of becoming great story-tellers, teachers, innovators, and emotional hierophants. If they can just put away their shoebox full of mementos and sentimental keepsakes, learn to camouflage their secret diaries into third-person perspective, and leave the comfort of their shells occasionally, they will be unstoppable. 

Notable Mentions
Jean Jacques Rousseau, June 28, 1712
Henry David Thoreau, July 12, 1817
Ambrose Bierce, June 24, 1842
Marcel Proust, July 10, 1871
Pablo Neruda, July 12, 1904
Jean Paul Sartre, June 21, 1905
Robert A Heinlein, July 7, 1907
Harold Bloom, July 11, 1930
Clive Cussler, July 15, 1931
Cormac McCarthy, July 20, 1933
John Gardner, July 21, 1933
Dean Koontz, July 9, 1945
Jeff VanderMeer, July 7, 1968
Karen Russel, July 10, 1981

- Forest Oliver