SEATTLE — You may not recognize him, but chances are you’ve heard Glenn Rockowitz’s voice.
For more than a decade, he’s done voiceover work for companies like Xbox, T-Mobile, and local news stations.
It's the latest chapter in a lifetime of creative work.
In his early 20's, Rockowitz did improv with Second City, worked as a writer for Saturday Night Live, and launched a non-profit in New York that brought live comedy shows into the homes of patients with HIV and cancer.
After moving to Seattle in 2002, he joined an ad agency and that lead to voice acting.
But his new memoir "Cotton Teeth" isn't about his eclectic career. It's about terminal cancer.
Rockowitz was diagnosed more than two decades ago, and what followed is hard to believe.
"My wife was 8 1/2 months pregnant and (the doctor) said, 'It's stage 4,’” Rockowitz said. "I decided I was going to tell my father… and that night I told him, he prayed and asked God, ‘Please, just give me his cancer so he will live.' And, this is purely coincidental but he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer seven days later and given roughly the same prognosis of three months. So, he and I were kind of dying together."
"Cotton Teeth" recounts their meaningful final weeks, and the conversations they shared.
"My dad was a psychoanalyst, so he was nuts,” Rockowitz laughed. “But he was also super bright and intuitive, and he had a lot of great thoughts about life. In the last few weeks of his life, we spent hours and hours and hours talking about existential stuff."
The memoir visits dark places and is unflinchingly honest. But it’s also full of humor. Rockowitz’s experience writing comedy helped him find the words.
"My grandma used to say, 'Just because you shed light on a situation doesn't necessarily mean you take a situation lightly,’” he said. "I'm always trying to inject some of that light of humor and laughter because honestly, I don't think I would have made it through most of what I've been through if I wasn't able to find things to laugh about."
The book is on Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Books of 2021 list. Rockowitz hopes it shows readers how grief can underscore joy.
"It highlights the most beautiful parts of life,” he said. "If nothing else, I should have been dead a long time ago and yet here I am. I think there's a lot of hope there as well."
As for how he believes his father would receive the memoir?
“He would say, 'You didn't make me sound handsome enough,'” Rockowitz said, smiling. "I think he would be genuinely proud."
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