Chances are you’ve seen her picture – she’s the young redhead in ads the medical research company Novartis puts out to show that cancer has a human face. Three years ago, Erin Zammett had the job of her dreams, a great boyfriend, the sort of fast-paced New York lifestyle that women around the world fantasize about, and a diagnosis of chronic myelogenous leukemia, a disease that, without treatment, kills within four to six years. Today, at 26, she is not only alive but the author of a new book, “My (So-Called) Normal Life: How I Learned To Balance Love, Work, Family, Friends …and Cancer at 23” (Overlook Press, 239 pages, $24.95), which grew out of the cancer diary she published in Glamour, where she’s worked since August of 2000.

Ms. Zammett received her diagnosis after a routine checkup in the fall of 2001. Coincidentally, Glamour was running a piece on Gleevec, a new drug for leukemia, that December. She decided to join a trial for the drug, which, along with chemotherapy – and the good fortune of having her cancer caught in time, as well as being treatable – eventually brought her disease down to barely detectable levels.

Thanks in part to the drug’s success, Ms. Zammett became a cancer advocate, raising funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and serving on the board and raising money for the G&P Foundation for Cancer Research, which songwriter and philanthropist Denise Rich founded after her daughter Gabrielle died of leukemia in 1996. When asked about Ms. Zammett’s involvement, Ms. Rich expressed admiration for her “tireless advocacy” and “unwavering commitment to women’s issues and cancer research”; indeed, she hosted the party launching Ms. Zammett’s book. “It was truly an honor to host the launch party,” Ms. Rich said. “Even at its darkest moments, Erin’s incredible story is filled with humor and courage, with optimism and love.”

Ms. Zammett’s book is a cancer memoir that isn’t really about cancer. In fact, with its magazine-office setting and bright young heroine, it almost appears to be another chick-lit offering: “I’d be editing a page on ‘Guy’s Biggest Under-the-Cover Regrets,’ and … Boom, back to finger sticks and blood counts,” she writes. But rather than mining classic female angst humor, in the manner of the genre classic “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” or dishing dirt, like the scandal-mongering of “The Nanny Diaries” and “The Devil Wears Prada” (Glamour and Vogue are both in the Conde Nast building), “My (So-Called) Normal Life” tells a more real, less hype-ridden story of the magazine world. Yes, there are cool parties, but despite the news on Page Six, at the end of the day, life at Glamour has the same long hours and frenetic schedules as any other healthy, fast-paced workplace. People have to bond, multitask, and get on with it.

“I didn’t want this just to be a cancer book,” Ms. Zammett said over a bottled water in the Glamour conference room earlier this month (by the way, her hair really is that show stopping, only-from-nature red). In the hall behind us were long racks of swank sample clothes for photo shoots (lots of cool T-shirts). “I don’t know that I would pick up a cancer book just to read. The idea behind it is that you can maintain a normal life. I still want to do X, Y, and Z, and have a good time doing it. And a lot of cancer patients – young women – that I have talked to have felt like that. I’ve always been like, okay, s– happens, let’s get upset about it a little bit, give it its due, but then what are you going to do? Because I have too many other things going on in my life to let something knock me down. Even cancer.”

At its best, Ms. Zammett’s book is about setting priorities straight, which, for the author, a self-described chronic multitasking perfectionist, means spending more time with her friends and her family, including her Grandma Dell, a former high-kicking Rockette, but especially with her two sisters, Meghan and Melissa (who happen to share Ms. Zammett’s showstopping hair).

Surprisingly, given its subject, the book’s greatest flaw is its lack of a dark center. The closest it gets to darkness is when Ms. Zammett’s older sister, Melissa, is diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “I asked my oncologist if he could squeeze her [Melissa] in,” she laughed, “almost like asking a hairdresser, or someone at a restaurant, to squeeze in a friend for you.” While Melissa’s prognosis is good now, it was scary for a while. Ms. Zammett and her fiance rang in the New Year at Sloan-Kettering, sitting with Melissa as she recovered from a bone-marrow transplant.

Actually, Ms. Zammett’s book deals far more with relationships than with cancer: relationships at her workplace, which she loves, and with her family, especially Melissa. “Watching my sister be diagnosed and go through everything was a lot harder than my own cancer,” Ms. Zammett said. More than anything, Melissa wanted children, but bone-marrow transplants leave women infertile. Happily, she was able to have a son before the transplant.

As Ms. Zammett explains in the book, these days, some cancers can be managed as a chronic disease, meaning that life goes on, and for many women, life means wanting children. Options exist to preserve fertility, but they have not been well explored. Nor have the long-term effects of medications such as Geevec on pregnancy, which Ms. Zammett still takes 400 milligrams of every day.

Ms. Zammett is due to be married in July. “I work out every day. I’m going to be a buff bride,” she said, beaming. Her trial on Gleevec required her to travel monthly to Oregon, and she still travels there every few months to see her oncologist, Dr. Michael Mauro, whose wife is designing her wedding gown. “I had my muslin fitting and a biopsy in the same day,” she said of her most recent trip. “Doctor’s appointment was first. Depressing stuff first.” The dress is a low-cut ivory satin gown with a cummerbund of antique silver beads. Her oncologist is coming to her wedding.

When asked what her advice is to anyone with cancer, Ms. Zammett said, “Lean on people around you, even if it’s hard to talk about it. People want to help, whether it’s donating money or making you dinner one night. Have somebody you trust make some phone calls.” She also emphasized the importance of questioning your doctor. “What scares me most when I talk to some other patients is that their doctor tells them something, and they just say, ‘Okay.'” Ms. Zammet stressed that the information is out there. She suggests the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (www.leukemia.org; 800-955-4572), which has helped her and her sister, CancerCare (www.cancercare.org; 800-813-HOPE), and the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org; 800-ACS-2345). For anyone diagnosed, she strongly suggests calling CancerCare first. They have highly-trained oncology social workers that people can talk to – for free.