I relished this book- not only for the beautiful writing but for the sentiment, the love between two best friends. I didn't want this book to end, though I had a sad feeling about how it would end. I now have Autobiography of a Face on my bedside table, but am somewhat reluctant to begin reading it, maybe because I feel like I liked Ann Patchett's side of the story and the way that she told Lucy Grealy's story better than I could like Lucy Grealy's way of describing her own life. I'll give it a go- it will be interesting to read the words of the woman Ann Patchett so eloquently describes in Truth & Beauty.

Couldn't get into this book because there was no real character development. The book is not so much a narrative as a portrait, a portrait both of Lucy Grealy and of the friendship between Ann Patchett and Grealy. But Lucy at the end of the book is pretty much Lucy at the beginning of the book--with more success and a drug addiction. And Ann doesn't really change either, though she arguably matures and is more comfortable in her own skin by the end. The friendship, to be sure, undergoes some slight shifts, but the shifts are predictable and not especially enlightening. There are several quite good passages in the book, but as a whole, it just falls flat, b/c both the main characters and the friendship are one-dimensional and static. The book concludes with Lucy's death, but it is death without tragedy, or, more accurately, Patchett fails to bring out the tragedy of Lucy's death. And that is an artistic tragedy.

This is was a recent book club selection. I had a difficult time forcing myself to read it at first.

I wrote harsh notes as I was reading. I didn't think the writing was good at all. I didn't care for Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett seemed like a bit of a doormat. I was annoyed by the fact that there was little or no character development. I know it's a memoir, but I had a difficult time connecting with the two women in the story because Patchett didn't offer much insight into their character.

But slowly my opinion began to turn around and I found myself looking forward to reading about this friendship and eventually I found myself charmed by this book. Charmed by what or whom I'm not exactly sure, by Lucy Grealy? maybe, by Ann Patchett's constant love for Lucy? perhaps. I honestly don't know exactly what it was that made me turn my opinion of this book around a hundred and eighty degrees but that's what happened.

I often wondered why Ann Patchett wrote this book, what was her purpose? At the beginning of the book, when I was forcing myself to read it, I ascribed uncharitable reasons. And now, I can't say I know but it seemed like she wrote this as a record and a tribute to her love for Lucy. I think it is nearly impossible to accurately articulate the depth of love you feel for someone. But you can tell someone else what you did with them, how you worried about them, your favorite things to do together, how they drove you crazy sometimes but you loved them anyway. And that to me, is what this is, it's the things you say, the stories you tell after someone you loved has died.

Unfortunatly Lucy and everyone in her life seemed to focus their attention on the medical struggles that resulted from and revolved around her cancer. While little if any attention was paid to her mental health which I think was a shame.

This memoir of the friendship between two famous writers, Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy, is a truly beautiful book. They met at the start of their time at the Iowa Writer's Workshop in the '80's, where they forged an intimate friendship that lasted until Lucy's death in 2002.

While both women were deeply talented, Ann followed a methodical, disciplined path to success as a novelist while Lucy, whose life and ultimate fame were shaped by her struggles to reconstruct a face permanently damaged by childhod cancer, battled a very different set of challenges.

Despite their odd-couple friendship, Patchett is able to make visceral the deep love the two women held for each other, sharing Lucy's own voice through letters she wrote to Ann during their times apart. While Lucy is no longer here to tell her full side of the story, Patchett is unspairing when she turns the lens on herself to write about her own failings in the relationship, be it leaving their apartment to live with a boyfriend who was not good for her, or times she lost patience with Lucy's seemingly bottomless need for love despite being surrounded by those who adored her.

It is both touching and heartbreaking to see Patchett whipsaw between devotion and distance as she struggles with how to support this woman she loves so much as Lucy makes a series of choices that ultimately contribute to her early death. Anyone who has first hand knowledge of what it's like to so fiercely love someone dealing with self-destructive addiction will likely find candid reflection here.

While Lucy's end can be considered a tragic one, this memoir is an act of celebration, a deeply human portrail of both the messiness and nourisment offered by a friendship grounded in deep love between two women tumbling through the rapids of the journey from literary obscurity to success.

A deep and honest look at a 20 year friendship between two authors.

Quote: "Grief isn't something to be gotten through. It no has life of its own like that. It's just plain and simply there. It's one of the things that tell us we're human."

3.5 stars

I read this right after Autobiography of a Face, because it’s pretty cool to be able to read someone’s memoir—which intellectually we all realize will be slanted in some way, but that can be easy to forget—and then read someone else’s memoir about the person. So this is Patchett’s memoir of her close friend Lucy Grealy, also a writer, written right after Grealy’s premature death. And the books pair very well together, both well-written (though I think Patchett’s somewhat better in its polished writing style and vivid imagery) and compelling reads, both relatively short.

It’s interesting, I’ve noticed a definite trend in fiction focused on a female friendship: the characters always seem to be a rebel and a conformist, with the story told from the point-of-view of the conformist, presumably because readers wouldn’t have time for the more conventional character unless stuck in her head. I assume this dynamic to be a fictional convention not particularly representative of real-world friendships (in the same way that, from somewhat less experience with them, male friendship stories generally seem to feature a nerd and a jock, while in real life people tend to have more in common with their friends than that). And the rebel usually dies at the end. This memoir very much follows the pattern: Grealy is the wild one, the life of the party, the rule-breaker, always flying by the seat of her pants, charismatic and widely loved but so damaged that it’s never enough. And Patchett, in her own portrayal, is the careful, methodical, caretaking friend. It’s fair to say that their friendship comes across as codependent at times (and also that those who for some weird reason only want to read about perfect people should give this book a pass), though it’s hard to say how much of that is because of the book’s focus, because when you read all this stuff together it’s a lot, but that’s not actually how anyone involved experienced it.

I’m of two minds about the book really. On the one hand it’s lovely, well-written, with some striking and insightful passages, and I think it’s great when people write about their adult friendships, in a society that tends to value romance to the exclusion of everything else. Which Patchett even reflects on in the book, when in grad school she chooses a bad boyfriend over Grealy because a relationship with a man is supposed to be more important. On the other hand, there’s a sense in which it holds back and feels frustratingly incomplete. Patchett wrote the book perhaps too soon after Grealy’s death, and there’s an absence of some reflections you’d expect to see—she never addresses the codependence issue for instance, except in the most oblique and roundabout of ways. There’s also not a lot of her, of what this friendship was to her; she’s in it of course, but her writing is focused so exclusively on Grealy (well, and some aspects of the writing life that they shared or that she’s using as contrast), which also might inadvertently make the friendship look codependent. So it does come across a bit as if there’s something missing.

Interesting, Grealy’s sister Suellen published an article attacking the book, but she doesn’t challenge Patchett’s truth, instead complaining that publishing it was trespassing on the family’s grief. Which raises an interesting question—can a person’s memory belong to anyone? Which of a person’s relationships matter most, blood family or found family? Though I don’t think it’s a perfect book I am glad Patchett published this. I enjoyed reading it a lot and appreciated her perspective.

I’ve read all of Ann Patchett’s novels, including “Tom Lake” which will be published in August (pre-order it from an independent bookstore!) but I recently realized that there were some non-fiction books of hers that I’d missed. So I dove into “Truth & Beauty” on a long plane flight, and it was the perfect diversion!

“Truth & Beauty” is the story of the deep and fraught friendship between Ann Patchett and poet/writer, Lucy Grealy. Lucy had cancer as a child and one of its affects was that her jaw was deformed. She had 38 surgeries to try to correct it. I can barely comprehend such a life, but Patchett’s talents as a writer helped me see it

“Truth & Beauty” could be seen as a companion piece to Grealy’s own “Autobiography of a Face”.

It's a little confusing to separate all the various emotions and viewpoints associated with Truth and Beuaty because of the agita caused by the Grealey family's dissatisfaction with the book and Suellen Grealey's letter to the Guardian. The "controversy" stems from ideas of ethics and rights. Who owns the rights to Lucy's story? Is it ethical for Ann Patchett to use Lucy to tell her own story? I see both sides although I fall on Patchett's side. Reading Beauty, I could see how her family didn't like the at times ugly portrayal of Lucy, but I think it's not ugliness, but truth.

An interesting study in contrasts. Lucy Grealey's life has all the markings of a bloated, Hollywood biopic. The outsized personality, illness, disfigurement, depression, addiction, sexual exploration. Her life is epic and her death tragic. Patchett subverts expectations here by going small. She stays resolutely to her own tiny window into Lucy. The prose is minimal and well-considered, providing subtle contrast to Lucy's letters.

I was constantly reminded of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, an odd reference point, but a think an applicable one because of their similar perspectives. Both novel's ostensible protagonist, the narrator, become side characters to the bombast of the colorful friend. And of course the stories of both Jay Gatsby and Lucy Grealey don't end well, but this does bring me back to ethics. Gatsby is a work of fiction so the perspective, like everything else, is a fabrication. Beauty is a memoir, but on appearance it is a memoir of Lucy, not of Ann. I say on appearance because I'm not sure the memoir is so much about Lucy as it is about writing and creativity as told through the friendship of Patchett and Grealey. It reminded me of Didion's Blue Nights, where you think you're reading about the death of her daughter, but you're actually reading about death itself and the struggle of writing and art against it.

The discussions about writing and the descriptions about Lucy's feelings about writing are fascinating. Writing is salvation for both Patchett and Grealey through their lives. Patchett appears to reach the same conclusion as Didion, that writing and art and truth and beauty are not salvation. They are not a lifeline. Nothing can stop death and fear if it wants to come.

Oh dear talented and generous Ann Patchett. Your subject said one true thing: You are a saint. I have read you and I have read Lucy. YOU are the talent.

Why did you do so very much for this self-centered, narcissistic person? I do not understand. From cleaning and cooking for her to paying her bills to carrying her around like a child to cleaning her sick and bathing her … what did you receive in return? Some letters. Professions of love. A gift or two?

I tried to find redeeming qualities in your friend. She cried constantly. Complained incessantly. Sprayed her sexual exploits into the air. Required your constant attention. Showed jealousy when you succeeded. Demanded your financial help. Disapproved when you dated. Forbade you from using her editor. Failed to listen to your troubles. Begged for compliments. Scolded you for not being there for every surgery. Phoned you at all hours of the day and night. She was so needy and sick. Why were you such a wonderful friend? And where were her siblings during her struggles? How dare her sister criticize you for stealing their grief. She knew nothing. You knew everything.

Review on the way...

I like anything by Patchett but wow, I could never understand why Lucy was so popular.

I thought this was a great book. I had honestly never heard of Lucy Grealy. But I do love Ann Patchett's work.