Bestselling author and Orange Prize winner Ann Patchett's first work of non-fiction is a book about her long friendship with the critically acclaimed, and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy. It is remarkable for me to remember now that I thought it would be possible to walk away from her, that she might have gone on living, but without me. I know now I never would have had the strength of my convictions. I am living in a world without Lucy. I have no choice about that. If she were alive and I had that choice, I wouldn't have been able to last without her for a day.' What happens when the person who is your family is someone you aren't bound to by blood? What happens when the person you promise to love and to honor for the rest of your life is not your lover, but your best friend? In her frank and startlingly intimate first work of nonfiction,Truth & Beauty,Ann Patchett shines light on the little explored world of women's friendships and shows us what it means to stand together. Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981,and after enrolling in the Iowa Writer's Workshop began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work.
In her critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir,Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy wrote about the first half of her life: losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer,the years of chemotherapy and radiation, and then the endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards,to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs and despair,this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined. This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty, and about being lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest
This is the story of Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy. The love that Ann had for Lucy shines through the pages and the tragedy and heartbreak shows as well. It's the story of a woman who wanted to have a face, wanted to be pretty but her cancer got in the way almost every time. The number of surgeries she endured to try to be normal or look normal were amazing and she never really gave up the hope that something would work. Eventually her disassocation with the real world and inability to accept herself for herself got in the way of her life.
I read Lucy's Autobiography of a Face several years ago and was impressed with her ability to cope with what was going on. This shows another aspect of that struggle, the support she got from others.
Yes, it's sometimes a bit over-sentimental, I could almost see Ann's frustration at not being able to help more or change Lucy so that she wouldn't be so self-destructive, while still wanting Lucy to be Lucy. A hard balance, well written about.
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5 August, 2009:
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5 August, 2009:
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