Wow -- what a fascinating experience, to read "Truth and Beauty" after "Autobiography of a Face" and then to follow up with Suellen Grealy's angry article. I actually thought "Truth and Beauty" was the better book of the two, although perhaps it's not fair to say that because much of my fascination with "Truth and Beauty," at least initially, stemmed from having read "Autobiography of a Face" and the unique, stimulating opportunity to read one person's memoir and then to read how that person was remembered by a close friend.
First of all, I loved the writing. I forgot I was reading a book half the time; I felt like I was experiencing the friendship and the people myself. Also, while "Autobiography of a Face" was well-written, the story gripped me more than the writing. With "Truth and Beauty," the writing was more singular than the story although I enjoyed both. "Autobiography" explored the dynamics of growing up looking like a freak, while "Truth" described a uniquely intimate? codependent? almost physical? unhealthily close, or just unusually close? friendship -- a more universal topic, but written about in such a fascinating and provocative way.
This book made me think a lot about friendship. When does unique closeness become dysfunctional and unhealthy? When friends fall into the roles of "the sick one" and "the well one," even legitimately, how do they break out of that? And should they? If so, at what point?
It also made me think about sociable, charismatic, life-of-the-party people and whether they're just good at masking and filling (or trying to fill) an inner emptiness. Is it better to be introverted?
Then, reading Suellen Grealy's article (not printed in the book, for obvious reasons) raised even more questions for me. I could empathize with Suellen's feelings of exposure and her sense that her private grief had become something public and marketable. At the same time, at the risk of sounding callous, there's another way to look at this. For example, concerning "Autobiography," she expressed irritation that Lucy had selected her vantage point -- but what do you expect a memoir to be?
In describing Ann Patchett's afterword to "Autobiography," Suellen quoted her sister Sarah as saying, "Where are we in this story?" Ann Patchett was describing her memories of Lucy, which didn't include her sisters, whom she never met while Lucy was alive. I tried to understand -- is she angry about the exposure of Lucy, or about the fact that she wasn't included in this expose?
Then, Suellen reacted to the fact that one reading guide for "Autobiography" questioned her mother's parenting skills, and reported that this was blamed on an inexperienced intern. It's true that this may be insensitive to the family, but once you're going to go there, maybe the book shouldn't have been published at all!
Suellen said that, while she respected Ann Patchett's need to write the book as an artist, she would have preferred that she write it and then bury it somewhere rather than publishing it. Right. I sympathize with Suellen's feelings of exposure, but to hold it against Ann that she spent years writing an excellent book, a book that contributes to the literature canon, and then actually wanted to publish it, is not fair.
This happens to be a problem, as I know because a friend of mine is a writer and a journalist and sometimes angers people who appear in her writings (directly or indirectly) because they feel their privacy has been invaded. It's not that I don't sympathize with Suellen's feelings. I can't imagine what her grief must be like, and then to have it bared so publicly outside of her control. However, "Truth and Beauty" was such a worthwhile book in my opinion that I have a hard time relating to her particular complaints. I guess that any book has the potential to expose and hurt people, especially a memoir. Does that mean it shouldn't be written? Does that mean it shouldn't be read?

I first learned about the friendship of Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy, in Patchett's excellent essay collection,  This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage, so I knew I wanted to read the full story in this moving and unflinching memoir.
Ann and Lucy met in college. Lucy had a bout of childhood cancer, leaving her with a serious facial disfigurement, that wasted away her lower jaw. She ended up having nearly 40 surgeries, up until her premature death at age 39. Lucy dealt with self-esteem issues her entire life, which led her to substance abuse problems and suicidal tendencies.
This is the story of their unique friendship, which had plenty of bumps along the way, as Ann tried to help Lucy deal with her multitude of issues. The prose is strong, all along the way, with a staunch sense of honesty, that is sometimes hard to bear. Now, I want to read, Autobiography of a Face, which is Lucy's own story. Highly recommended.

the love between ann patchett and lucy grealy was so familiar to me and so strange. i wonder how her grief shaped the story because even as the book claims to be about their shared lives, it does more feel like a study and eulogy of lucy. i admired the intimacy of their bond, and it was also the most horrific part. there was such a staggering amount of neediness at the core of each of them. lucy's were more explicit in how ann read her and how she expressed herself, but ann's were the ever-present backdrop of the whole story. i really really liked it.

Wow.

It truly astounds me what some people live through. What they are forced to endure. What they choose in response. I don't know if I feel more empathy for Lucy and her physical and emotional struggles, or Ann, who had a ringside seat to it all, trying to continue to love despite all the odds against it.

This chronicle of a unique friendship was brutally honest and painfully real. Two women with similar goals but different personalities, who somehow find each other and manage to navigate life's obstacle course without being irreparably torn apart by the stumbles and skinned flesh for years, until one finally succumbs to her inner demons.

This story made me think of those I love with similar challenges. The wish to help, the sacrifices made to another, the love inextricably intertwined with exhaustion and helplessness, the attempt to set boundaries that might be impossible to keep, or might result in never ending guilt. The endless questioning about what to do and how to do it. The love and admiration that never penetrates the inner psyche of your friend.

And then the Lucy aspect: the early damage with life-long consequences to her well-being and self-identity, the physical pain and ordeal of trying to repair a damaged body, the uncertainty that she will never be enough for herself or others, the depression, the self-hatred, the loneliness, the constant doubt, the inability to change what needs changing.

A well-rendered testament to love and relationship as life frays the edges. I felt this at a visceral level as people in my life surfaced within the words Patchett used to describe her experiences.

I didn't know much about Patchett or Grealy before reading this memoir and I still don't, but I love how Patchett details this intense friendship between two writers and gives you a close look at the writing process, how people develop and why we keep writing. Here's what Patchett has to say of Grealy:

"What the story doesn't tell you is that the ant relented at the eleventh hour and took in the grasshopper when the weather was hard, fed him on his tenderest store of grass all winter. The tortoise, being uninterested in such things, gave his medal to the hare. Grasshoppers and hares find the ants and tortoises. They need us to survive, but we need them as well. They were the ones who brought truth and beauty to the party, which Lucy could tell you as she recited her Keats over breakfast, was better than food any day."

This was an incredible book about friendship. Lucy Grealy had cancer when she was young, which resulted in several surgeries to remove parts of her jaw. These surgeries left her with a deformed face. Ann met Lucy in her early 20’s. She immediately befriended Lucy and “felt chosen by Lucy and was thrilled.” Lucy had a lot of friends. But it never seemed to be enough. Ann beautifully describes her friend in these words, …”Lucy’s loneliness was breathtaking in its enormity. If she emptied out Grand Central Station and filled it with the people she knew well, the people who loved her, there would be more than 100 people…If you added to that number all the people who loved her because of her book, all the people who admired her, all the people who had heard her speak or had seen her on television or listened to her on the radio and loved the sound of her odd little voice, you could pack in thousands and thousands of more people, and still it wouldn’t feel full, not full enough to take up every square inch of her loneliness. Lucy thought that all she needed was one person, the right person, and all the empty space would be taken away from her. But there was no one in the world who was big enough for that. She believed that if she had a jaw that was like everyone else’s jaw, she would have found that person by now. She was trapped in a room full of mirrors, and every direction she looked in she saw herself, her face, her loneliness. She couldn’t see that no one else was perfect either, and that so much of love was the work of it. She had worked on everything else. Love would have to be charmed.” To me, this described Lucy the best. I commend Ann for being such a great friend. I am not sure if I would have the patience to be a friend to someone as hard on life and on love, as Lucy. Very moving. I would never had read this if it wasn’t for book club. I am so glad I did. I am going to add Autobiography of a Face to my wishlist.

Much like Patchetts collection of autobiographical essays, Truth and Beauty is her perspective about her “best friend” Lucy. The first person writing style is direct and straightforward. The novel almost exclusively focuses on Lucy‘s life and all of the “amazing” things which Patchett has done for her. I found Patchett to be patronizing, self righteous and extremely sarcastic, and quite frankly, annoying at times. The best writing is found at the very end of the story, which is incidentally, where I think Patchett got the license from Lucy ( in a dream )to actually write this story…hmmmm...I’m now going to read Lucy’s actual autobiography… Autobiography of a Face… I will come back and edit this review after reading Lucy’s story.
Well, I have returned to complete my review of Patchett’s book, Truth and Beauty. I am now even more disturbed by Patchett’s book, which by the way, is titled with the same title as a chapter in Grealy’s beautifully written autobiography. Lucy’s writing is poetic and lyrical, yet as honest as bone while Patchett’s work is bombastic, pedestrian, and most definitely exploitative.

We had invented time, and we could not kill it fast enough.


The true story of Ann and Lucy’s friendship was a riveting one, but it was so hard to read towards the end. Lucy went through so much that by the time it got to drugs it was just painful. Anyway, Ann writes in a clear, poignant way about the high and heartbreakingly low points of their relationship, and how hard it can be to love someone. I think this book will stay with me for a while.

I didn't care for it, for several reasons. First of all, I didn't think much of the quality of the writing--certainly nothing like Lucy Grealy's in her own memoir. Second, I found both women's behavior in the friendship really strange. Ann seems completely blank in the relationship, never asserting any real personality, and completely enabling Lucy's neediness and selfishness. Lucy just sounded like a black hole, sucking up every bit of attention, affection, needing more and more extravagant declarations of love. She sounded exhausting.

And finally, I think it exploitative of Ann Pratchett to write a book like this about someone she supposedly felt was her best friend when that person could no longer respond, particularly as Ann wasn't truly writing about the relationship at all. She did not write about her own feelings of the friendship, why and how it developed as it did, what kept them together, what she learned about herself, how (or whether!) Lucy brought out the best in her, etc.; in fact, there seems to be very little reflection on or ownership about her own behavior. Mostly it seems to be an expose' about Lucy.

I just came away feeling that both these women sounded really messed up, needy, difficult, self-absorbed, and not at all self-aware, and that both had a habit of using terrible judgment in their personal lives. Yuck. If this is truth--I do mean "if"--it's not beauty, and I wonder why anyone would want either of them as a friend.

3.5