Many of actor Evan Handler's fans know him best as Harry Goldenblatt from "Sex and the City": the balding husband to WASP-turned-yenta Charlotte York.
What most of them may not know is that his signature cue-ball look is not genetic.
It's a side effect from invasive medical treatments he underwent in his 20s for acute myeloid leukemia, a supposedly unbeatable cancer.
"It's not like I'm the only cancer survivor running around," Handler said, "but a lot of the renowned ones are not such young people and didn't have their illnesses at such a young age [as I had mine]."
Diagnosed at 24, He wasn't supposed to live to see his 30s. Now 47, the television, film and Broadway veteran will release his second memoir, "It's Only Temporary: The Good News and the Bad News of Being Alive," on May 1.
A retrospective glimpse at where life has taken him since his recovery, "It's Only Temporary" picks up where his first book "Time On Fire: My Chronicle of Terrors," an account of his five-year battle with cancer, left off.
"It was really the illness that got me writing," he said. "Even after I hadn't written for a while after the first book, the way I got started again was to say to myself, 'Stop making the rule that you have to wait for something in the illness to write about. Write about how it's informed your life since.'"
He began writing portions of the book "some years ago." The pieces came together as a collection of provocative essays in which Handler deftly balances existential musings with lighthearted anecdotes covering everything from junior high gym class to intercontinental romance.
He makes life's little absurdities seem simultaneously epic and trifling, infusing his already rich prose with a tension that mirrors his "ironic struggle to find contentment in the life he's lucky to be living."
The ending to Handler's story is a happy one, culminating in marriage and the birth of his daughter.
Although the bulk of Handler's romantic and professional experiences are for the most part universal, he said the book appeals largely to 20-something readers because it's filled with dating and relationship stories similar to those featured in shows like "Sex and the City," except "lived and told by a man."
"The book to me is about a guy living through his 20s in his 30s, because his 20s were spent kind of like as a dying old man," he said. "It's kind of a life lived backwards, in a certain way."
Today, Handler is moving swiftly forward, keeping busy filming the Showtime series "Californication" and promoting the upcoming "Sex and the City" movie release.
He also doesn't plan to shelve his literary aspirations any time soon.
"Writing is the area where I don't have as much recognition, so I certainly would like that to come," he said. "I'd like to expand the repertoire of what kind of books I write."
Fiction is a genre he's considered exploring, but non-fiction is the area where he feels his ability to inspire has proven to be most valuable.
"I don't think there are so many very high-profile people who had such intense experiences at such a young age as I did," he noted. "I think it's really cool to send the message, 'Here's what I was told was impossible, and here I am existing and doing this stuff."
