Book excerpt: Songs from a Lead-Lined Room is a unique and remarkable book rooted in truth and raw experience, and the first memoir to focus on the personal experience of radiation treatment. As with Shea's best-selling fiction, her sharp and insightful wit and her reporter's eye for the most telling and sometimes quirky details inform every page. She shares what she learns about the process of her treatment, her bouts of despair, indignity, and fear, as well as the faux pas, the innocent blunders, and the compassion and caring of her family, friends, and fellow patients