ann patchett & lucy grealy
I was almost done with the second to the last paragraph of Ann Patchett’s essay “Friendship Envy” about “Sex and the City” and the complications of friendships when I put two and two together and realized the Lucy she mentions as having lost recently was Lucy Grealy, the author of Autobiography of a Face.
Patchett published a very moving profile of both Grealy and their friendship in New York Magazine three months ago, well worth a read but be sure you have a box of tissues around if you’re the crying type. (I read it in my neighborhood pearl tea joint in March and I think the only thing that kept me from tearing up was the thought of how absurd I’d look sniffling while sucking tapioca balls through a large straw.)
Update: Patchett’s memoir of her relationship with Grealy, Truth & Beauty: A Friendship was released in May 2004 and is available in hardcover, paperback, and on the Kindle, as well as in an audio edition.
Every considerable bit of steam and saline I had mustered for this woman evaporated when, towards the end of Patchett’s book, it was revealed that she was “virulently anti-American” and thought the victims of 9-11 got what was coming since America had done much evil in the world “unpunished.” She was brilliant and suffered much and greatly; this is excrutiatingly true. She was also utterly self-absorped and rather uncaring of the infinite attentions and sacrifices of her numerous American friends.
Perhaps she should have stayed in Aberdeen?
Regarding JHelsel’s comments that she was self- absobed and uncaring – you have to also realize something about Lucy Grealy which should make you take some of her comments with a grain of salt. Towards the end of her life she became very addicted to perscription painkillers from all her surgeries and the last two years of her life she was a heroin addict. I would take something someone said, no matter how brilliant, with a huge grain of salt if that was the state of mind they had come to. I think also the pain and suffering in her own life, all the surgeries she endured, the fact that it was her face that was the most disfigured thing about her, that has to wear on a person and perhaps under the influence, she was not at her best, wouldn’t you think?
I agree with Lorelei Elaine. Not only did Lucy Grealy suffer a horrendous childhood on into adulthood due to her disfigurement and numerous surgeries, she was an immigrant from Ireland. When her family immigrated, her brothers immediately began a campaign of anti-American sentiment.
Having just finished the book a few days ago, I think I agree a lttle with all the comments previouly posted. But moreover, that Ann Patchett’s portrait of Lucy Grealy is one that is understandable to any woman who has ever had an intense friendship with another woman. Sure, Lucy is one of the most self-absorbed characters ever described in literature, but she is not being portrayed as a saint, but more of a martyr, a reluctant spokesperson for the hunchbacks of the world. She was someone who plowed forward despite terrible physical deformities and pain and still managed to live a full and successful (for what she had to endure and an almost inevitable early death)life. She reminds me of Carson Mc Culler’s The Heart is a Lonely Hunter–we all want to be the beloved at some point, even the ugly and “undesirable.” Her life was a search to find someone to hold her up as precious, the reason why she reveled in her relationship with Ann and her many overly suppostive and tolerant friends and her doctors, and the same reason why she was so horribly dissappointed with her sexual partners. Lucy’s life should be a lesson for all women. Before anyone so readily criticizes her life, they should consider the full implication of what it would be like to walk in her shoes.
I experienced much of what Lucy Grealy did in her childhood; that is, I was tormented about my appearance from childhood all through high school. But it did not make me infantile, self-absorbed, selfish, lazy, promiscuous, and a drug addict. I think people gave attention to Grealy not out of any great liking for her ( since Grealy is definitely not a very likeable person), but out of pity and/or compassion. The exception is Ann Patchett, who, judging from her book, was in love with her. Her relationship with Grealy is a textbook example of excruciating co-dependence. A warm, wonderful friendship this ain’t.
It is a wonder to me how severely people judge a human being who has made her work public. I suppose one may say anything one wants about work in the public sphere, but it is disheartening to see such arrogant dismissal of a writer and her grieving friend without consideration for the possibility of one’s own misinterpretation and ignorance of the lived details. For Grealy’s family and friends and Patchett’s sake, I hope they do not stumble accross this website.
I, for one, appreciated Grealy’s memoir for its literary details, personal revelations, and relevant intellectual context. I appreciated Ann Patchett’s afterword as well as her piece “The Face of Pain”.
Having watched a best friend descend into a heroin addiction for “no good reason” I’ve walked away considering myself lucky for surviving relatively unscathed, but certainly not morally or intellectually superior. Self-absorption, or what appears to others to be self-absorption, is sometimes more of a trap with room for little hope than a mere chosen vanity one can denounce with the right dose of humility.
I just finished “Truth & Beauty” this evening. Does anybody know how to contact Ms. Patchett? I have two questions (1) Where was Lucy’s family throughout her personal struggles? and (2) Did she not have a close relationship with her twin sister? Lucy Grealy, God rest her soul, was a classic diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder. God bless you Ann. Lucy was truly loved all along — if only she could of recognized this!
I just finished the Patchett book also. I have read and reread Autobiography of a Face so many, many times that when I first tried to read Truth and Beauty, I thought the maybe Patchett didn’t know Grealy at all, but had cribbed her “biography” from what Grealy wrote in AOAF. I am still wondering a bit, but I’m assuming that someone must have seen them together.
I also realize that my feelings about this book are amazingly complex. Having lost a dear friend that I loved, I imagined writing a sort of “tell-all” book about her and I’m not sure if I did it would be honoring her.
I guess that’s what makes me the most uncomfortable about this book–in writing about her tremendous friendship and rivalry with Grealy, Patchett is, in a way, declaring a victory in the race “to be the success” that she and Grealy seem to have engaged in.
It reminds me of a passage in Geoffrey Wolfe’s book, Duke of Deception, where he points out that a friend of his father’s defended his father against the charge of being a Jew (back in the ’30s) thus suggesting what a good friend he had been to him, but Wolfe points out that a real friend would never have told him the story at all.
Although I did find Lucy to be impetuous and self absorbed, I felt a great deal of sadness for her obvious poor sense of self. I was so moved by Ann’s devotion to her and the friendship itself that it made me examine my own close friendship with my dearest friend, Karen. I guess that is the beauty of the written word, it takes you places in your own memory that you hold sacred.
I’m so glad to have stumbled onto this discussion of Patchett/Grealy. I have to agree with much of what Cynthia said. Almost halfway through Truth and Beauty, I realized that Lucy Grealy was a self-absorbed spoiled and irresponsible person who used Ann Patchett terribly. I’m having a hard time finishing the book because of my dislike for Grealy. This book is not about friendship. It’s about self-pity and codependency. Lucy Grealy is no hero.
No Hero, self absorbed, irrespsonsible…
Are you people for real? Here is a woman who suffered physical and emotional pain for THIRTY NINE years of her life. Do you not think that all these surgeries left her in immense pain?? Do you not think being disfigured would also cause a ton of emotional pain? Lucy is a hero… The fact that she SURVIVED makes her a hero. The fact that she made it through most of the years of her life not addicted to drugs is a miracle… It is obvious to me that the people who think she was “spoiled” have themselves lived a very charmed life. Ever heard of OxyContin?? Percocet? Morphine?? The reason it was so easy for Lucy to become a heroin addicct in the first place was the fact that she was already forced to take a myriad of highly addictive LEGAL narcotics. I myself have suffered from chronic back pain for ten years and I can tell you right now that it is absolutely NOTHING in comparison to what she went through for her whole life. I can’t even begin to fathom the pain she endured. She suffered immensly and the fact that she lived so freely for most of her life and had so many friends is a testament to how she tried desperately to make her life as good as she could in the way of terrible obstacles.
Lucy deserved to be spoiled… Anyone who can endure what she went through… The ridicule, the pain, the constant surgeries… She deserved to be spoiled.
Anyone who disagrees – go get some surgery and then imagine 38 surgeries and 38 recoveries all fit into an approximate 30 year span and how depressing that could be. Then imagine your face changing that many times…
Shame on anyone who lacks the compassion to see what this woman endured.
Grealy did go through a lot, and seeing as how most likely none of us posting have ever had to live with Ewing’s Sarcoma, we really aren’t in aposition to judge her. Maybe she could be a little selfish at times, but think about how she viewed the world. In her mind, she was the only one who truly understood her, everyone else was on the outside. Of cousre she had to look out for her own interests, is she didn’t could she really count on anyone else to? Plus, remember, one of those closest to her, Patchett, loved her dearly and didn’t think of her as selfish. I think that says something, seeing as how none of us knew her personally…
Lucy Grealy a “hero”? I almost fell out of my chair laughing at that one. As for “she deserved to be spoiled”; well, she certainly felt that she was entitled to be spoiled. She thought she was entitled to everything. She was a bottomless pit when it came to entitlement. She thought she deserved everything, money, fame, adulation, because of surviving a disfiguring cancer. But what she really deserved was to have some sense knocked into her. If she had been forced to “bottom out” as so many drug addicts have to do in order to see that only they can save themselves, perhaps she would not have died of a heroin overdose. If her enabling “friends” had not always been there to pamper and cosset her after her innumerable surgeries and provide her with food, money, shelter she might still be alive. Maybe if Grealy had found herself in jail, or in a homeless shelter, or starving on the street, that might have made her face her demons once and for all. Instead she always had loving “friends” like Ann Patchett to cushion her fall. Grealy died alone, of a drug overdose, in an apartment she was squatting in. Her life story is not one of triumph; it is one of failure. Her friends failed her by fostering her selfish, irresponsible behavior and emotional instablity. But it was Grealy who failed herself most of all, by never facing her severe mental problems, which went much deeper than the issue of her face.
I tend to agree, to a large extent, with the folks
on this site who have leaned towards the view that
while Lucy suffered enormous physical and emotional pain in her life, she was also incredibly irresponsible and self absorbed, and her friends helped her to become this way.
Ann was her friend, yes, but also her enabler,
despite what I think were her very good intentions.
Fascinating book, I admit that I read it until
I couldn’t put it down.
This is a great website, by the way!
“Instead she always had loving “friends” like Ann Patchett to cushion her fall”
And what is wrong with having loving friends that support you through the toughest times in your life??
I’m glad she had those friends… regardless of if they were so called “enablers” or not. We all need people to lean on. Some of us just need to do more leaning than others… and usually those are the people who have been through the hardest of times. Don’t forget that Lucy had numerous mental health professionals that she worked with to try and improve her quality of life… Sometimes depression is a hard thing to crawl out of – not all of us are as strong as you must be Cynthia… Congratulations on being stronger than Lucy… Does that make you feel like a better person??
To call someone a failure is pretty harsh. I’m sensing that you may be a “glass half empty” kind of person… and I feel sorry for you. Trying to see the good in people is so much easier than focusing on the negatives and labelling someone a failure. Time to look in the mirror and figure out where all that anger is coming from.
Amen to that sister!
I wouldn’t call my reaction to the pathetic Lucy Grealy “anger”. I would call it HONESTY. I call ’em like I see ’em. And Lucy Grealy was a loser. She was a woman who never grew up, who was never ALLOWED to grow up, due to the people who surrounded her and took care of her as though she were a helpless child. She wasn’t helpless. She was an adult capable of making her own living. But why make a living when other people are willing to provide for you? And why make any attempt to change your life when you have “friends” who make allowances for your reckless, wildly irresponsible behavior? Poor Lucy, she’s been through so much, let’s give her everything she wants, she deserves it. What hogwash! And a fat lot of good it did her; all that mollycoddling and permissiveness weakened her already questionable character and made her even more infantile. Let’s look at the cold, hard facts, shall we? Lucy Grealy wrote a successful memoir, that was later determined to be not entirely truthful. She was given money to produce a novel, but never came up with even a few pages. She kept having surgery after surgery in her eternal quest to be beautiful. The surgeries, which were her own choice, kept her in pain, so she medicated herself heavily, eventually falling in love with heroin. She was a common junkie, but considered herself above other heroin addicts; “I’m not like those people. I’m not an addict”. To the end of her days, she refused to admit she was addicted. She was broke and homeless, but avoided the homeless shelter and the streets by squatting in friends homes and taking money from them. She ended up killing herself; whether it was an accident or deliberate, it will never be know with certainty. Now I ask you: is this a person who should be revered? Is this a person who should be called a “hero”? Not in my book. My heroes are people who can face adversity and deal with it, not people who wallow in self-pity and drugs. Having a cancer that took part of her jaw did not justify the mess that Lucy Grealy made of her life. No matter how many sob-sisters bleat about her suffering, the facts speak for themselves. Lucy Grealy screwed up. And it was ALL HER OWN FAULT.
I stumbled on this site and am glad I did. I haven’t heard any comments to the question Lisa asked in November. Where was her family? My mother began a series of surgeries at the age of 5 that continued until 5 years ago, with a total of over 30. She is now 85. She is strong, loving and views her pain with a view that has always been “OK, so get on with life and live it to the fullest.” I have read all of Patchett’s book, read Lucy Grealy’s autobiography and assorted articles on their relationship. I keep coming back to the impact of her family and their lives together as a source of question. My mother’s parents were with her for all surgeries, basically,”moved into the room.” Her father spent endless hours of time in physical therapy with her. She stated she never felt alone. When I read Grealy’s account of her parents leaving her alone at the hospital and her stunned reaction and then resolve that “she was alone” I wondered how that impacted her behavior of self absorbtion. That reaction made some sense to me.
As to the questions people has raised about her friends sticking with her, I look to Ann Patchett’s statements about how Lucy was one of the most vital, interesting people she had ever known. I think many of us have fallen in love with friends who are destructive, and also fastinating. I wonder if that is one of the factors that held so many of Lucy’s friends to her for so long.
In short, I have found this an interesting conversation to be part of because it resembles my experiences in life and the lives of many people I know. I have no answers only questions.
Where was her family? Always there for her, but Lucy did neglect to mention us a lot! But that was fine, we’re always proud of her, and was thankful for the success she did have. We have no intention of adding to the Lucy industry, although if someone wants to give me a healthy advance I may be tempted. She obviously touched a lot of people in her short life, and for that we are thankful
I agree with much of what has been written here (even you Cynthia!) But I will simply add that you shouldn’t always believe what you read and don’t put yourself in others shoes so easily ( Cynthia again!) As in any biography, what’s left out is just as important. And she left out a lot!
For the record, I supported Ann’s book. I didnt’ read it all because it was too painful, and as Ann told me it’s very sad and I know the ending.
Lucy’s parent are not with us to defend their actions, but they should not have to defend their actions to strangersif they were! Realise that Lucy’s interpretation of her life naturally had parts missing. It’s an interesting story, but should perhaps be also included in the fiction category as well!
Would appreciate for the sake of the living to drop this whole thing!
I just finished reading Truth and Beauty. I envy their friendship and admire their talent. Everything Cynthia and her like is saying is insignifcant, petty and probably petulant. Lucy undured the unbearable and still manged to write like an angel.
Just finished the book last weekend … still feel
devastated. It was certainly well worth the time
I spent reading it, and I won’t soon forget it.
The reason I picked it up was because it was about
friendship and two aspiring writers. I think both
women are worth admiring, however flawed they are.
As for their flaws, I saw a bit of myself in both of them — both the victim and the rescuing hero.
It was a good reminder to me about how life can get so off track that it’s next to impossible to get back on (anyone who has suffered serious depression understands that to some degree) … I plan to recommend this book to all my friends.
I came to “Truth & Beauty” in a different way than any of you — I’d read and enjoyed Patchett’s “The Magician’s Assistant” and was looking for anything else she’d written.
I am online now because I had never heard of Lucy Grealy and was suspicious that she may not have been real. Numerous authors have written fiction in the guise of a memoir, and I though this might be another case.
Now that I’ve learned otherwise, I am amazed at the way Lucy’s friends put up with her for so long. Another reaction to the novel: those of us who write for newspapers and magazines have a hard time understanding the self-destructive and time-wasting behavior of so-called serious writers in this book. Apply rear end to seat and write something, for goodness sake, or get a job as a waitress, like Patchett did.
By all accounts, Joyce Carol Oates is also fairly neurotic and depressed, and yet she writes about two novels every three year, plus poetry, literary anaysis, and articles of all types.
Nicholas, I am sorry for your loss, and for your having to read the dissection of your sister, a real person and family member to you, as if she was nothing more than a made-up character in a novel. If it gives you any comfort, I read Ann’s book and took away a multitude of special and influential qualities in your sister in addition to my deep sense of sadness that her time to share her talents was so short. Godspeed.
What an interesting site! I too am interested in meeting or writing to Ann Patchett..why?…..because I live in Aberdeen. Perhaps she would like to come and re-visit us again soon to clear up a few things?
I also knew Lucy though I suspect it will come as no suprise to those using this site that I had never heard of Ann until her book came out despite actually flatting with Lucy!
Aberdeen does not deserve the infactual description given in Truth and Beauty which in my mind is rather short on facts anyway. I can’t comment on someone elses realtionships and how they view them but Lucy had a lot of friends in Aberdeen, people were rude to her all over the world, ignorance is NOT confined to one city and this is no worse than anywhere else: and ‘we’ here who provided rather a lot of FREE medical aid to Lucy are ‘not amused’ .
AND we don’t think AP should be sent back to Aberdeen (thanks who ever wrote that), she should just come and apologize.
Bethy
Nicholas’ comments about Lucy leaving out “a lot” is an important issue that writers face. They are creating a work of art, not writing about every detail of their lives. I haven’t read Autobiography of a Face, but Truth and Beauty is a work of art. I am almost finished Truth and Beauty, but I left the book at school yesterday, so I’ll have to wait until Monday to finish it. I stumbled on this sight looking for information about Lucy that would prepare me for what seemed to be inevitable, the loss of a vibrant woman.
It is interesting to me how all of these people calling Lucy Grealy a failure have never gone through the pain that she went through. Instead of judging what Grealy was like, why don’t people try to understand what she was trying to say about society? We are obsessed with looks and don’t allow disformed people to have happiness. How was Grealy supposed to grow up when at every turn people forced her into herself? Painkillers are among the most addictive substances in the world, and while it may be easy for people not on them to say that she should have gotten help, when you are forced to take them it is not so easy to see it that way. Her entire book was about how people judge each other, and all of you who are judging her are merely a case-in-point. “judge not lest ye be judged” is often quoted by people who stand on their Christian morals, but not used when they turn around and discredit someone like Lucy Grealy for being a “loser.”
Am interested to see the way this discussion winds itself, between those who call Lucy Grealy self-absorbed and spoiled, and those who would canonize her as a saint because of her pain. And then family members and friends intervene to point out that much has been left out of the written accounts (Grealy’s and Patchett’s), and that the perspectives of each author were inevitably partial and incomplete. In some ways, the discussion itself makes the point I want to make–that humans are complex creatures, simultaneously lovable and flawed beings who cannot be boxed into the “heroic” or “loser” categories easily. as such, these wonderful and terrible people resist being quickly reduced to the memoirs of their friends or even their own autobiographies. Can we read these books without being moved, at the very least, to contemplate the complexity of the human condition?
Having read “Truth and Beauty” and all the comments, I can understand both sides. I feel that Lucy was very lucky to survive Ewings Sarcoma since the 5 year survival rate is less than 10% and many people who have this cancer will suffer metastasis to another area of the body. I wish that her friends and the medical professionals in her life would have been better at helping her celebrate her cancer survival instead of trying to “fix” her face. There are ways, short of repeated surgeries, that she could have been helped. It is a chilling example of the importance our culture places on the external.
I read this book in two days and cried the whole time. Not because I thought Lucy Grealy was a hero or Ann Patchett a saint, nor did I think Grealy a loser and Patchett as a co-dependent enabler. But because this work made me think and examine my own life, my own struggles with cancer & surgeries, my own idea of beauty, and my friendships. I think it’s a mute point to argue about what Grealy was and wasn’t. I don’t think that’s the point of this book (or any other book for that matter). Only Patchett and Grealy know what really happened and who and what they are. We only know what we are told. I am grateful that this book made me think about who I am and who I want to be rather than who Lucy Grealy was.
People write for many reasons and I find it immpossible not to praise them for being vulnerable, they’ve shared their most personal thoughts with strangers, opened themselves up to critical commentary. Lucy was clearly a foiled person, filled with self-loathing and unrealized potential. Ann mothered her for her own pschological reasons and, I think, was consumed by guilt and remorse that she couldn’t/didn’t save Lucy. A complex relationship in a world of complex relations. Celebrate what a moving and thought provoking book this was and come down from your own self-defeating high horse; or stick to People magazine with it’s heroic stories of those who have beaten the odds.
I have just finished the book myself. Have read all the blogs so far…very interesting..I have to agree with YAC..I’m not a cancer survivor but everything else she said is exactly on for me. How I feel about myself, my friendships, my life in general.. I’ve had alot of problems with my teeth and lack of bone for implants…I often feel lonely, something I think we all have in common..that is what was important about this book to me. I did think the relationship sounded very co dependent but nice. I’d love to have a friend like that.. I have to comment to all that had such a strong negative reaction, that usually when something brings up such feelings it’s showing us something about ourselves because we can’t see ourselves except thru the mirror of others.
Just finished Truth & Beauty, and was impressed by it as an artwork (as opposed to a set-in-stone factual analysis). By virtue of its nature this memoir was lopsided in perspective; however, it’s artful in that we feel more intimacy with the person it focuses on (Grealy) than the narrator (Patchett).
Feedback posted here and elsewhere seems to run the gamut from judgmental attacks on Grealy’s life (which seem a bit much considering she’s someone most of us didn’t know) to beatification(which also seems a bit much — considering she’s someone most of us didn’t know). I found the memoir to be a pleasing character study of someone wonderfully flawed and at times inspirational. Though I found Patchett’s Grealy to be many things — spirited, “fetching”, irritating, maddening, lovable — she was never dull. I also found the book to be a much quieter reflection of Patchett’s: on being the friend who doesn’t shine quite so bright, the mottled cardinal mated to the bright redbird. Patchett’s memories of Grealy’s vibrance are explicit, but her own feelings of never quite measuring up are implicit and ultimately what drew Ann and Lucy together for me, the shared thread that pulled them close in this book.
I don’t think Lucy Grealy would have been nearly as interesting as pure saintly accepter of disfigurement, or as a full-blown loser. It’s far more facinating to try figuring out someone who’s a concoction of both, at the same time that she’s neither.
How did Lucy Grealy die?
I disagree with the comments that suggest because of Lucy’s enormous suffering it was somehow an “excuse” for spoiled behavior, insensitive comments, and drug addiction. Not so. There are many people in life who suffer though enormous pain but don’t resort to becoming an emotional vampire and sucking the life out of everyone around her. As I get older I have less patience for self destructive people like Lucy. I believe after reading Patchetts book that Lucy was a deeply disturbed individual who needed serious help-not people to placate her. This is not to say I don’t feel sorry for her, because I do. But the account of her in this book makes her very hard to like.
This is a geat site. Lucy Grealy’s book really moved me. I have looked, from time to time, about information about her. I read the Ann Patchett book. I very geatly respect the wishes of her brother that she may rest in peace and I don’t think that I am saying anything that would violate that. I feel a kind of bond with all the posters here because they would not have come here except for the fact that both Lucy’s book and Ann’s book moved them. What I find curious about most of the posts is that they leave out the most basic fact about both of these women. They could really really write. In Ann Patchett’s book she says that only two people from her college were chosen for the Iowa’s writers’ program. The people that did the choosing for that year may have screwed up a whole lot of things in a whole lot of years- but that year they were right on the button.
rr
I was moved by Ann Patchett’s telling of Lucy’s story because it speaks so passionately and clearly about the essential human condition. Each of us has something in our lives we deal with in order to learn the true life lesson, which is to love ourselves as divine beings so we can love others and see divinity in them. For Lucy, her “thing” was external, on display every waking moment. It’s heartbreaking that the gifts she was given to help her through–that did in fact allow her to transcend the pain and shame and incompleteness to lead this incredibly alive life that was inspirational for many–were not enough in the end to sustain her. Or, actually that she couldn’t keep in touch with those gifts to see her through. She abandoned her writing, one of her gifts, even though she knew it was her salvation. Many artists are too sensitive, too intelligent, too not-of-this-world to always survive in this world–that is the heartbreak of their genius. It doesn’t strike me as self-absorption but self-negation, the feeling you’re not worth it, but since you also sense you have come “trailing clouds of glory” as Wordsworth wrote, you try to make sense of why you don’t feel loved. I think most of us have something that we hold out there, thinking “When I get that parent’s love, or that car, or that job, or that child, or whatever, I’ll know I’m ok.” But we don’t voice it but just keep scrabbling after ‘it” and wearing a mask that we’re ok already. Lucy didn’t have that luxury. She showed great courage and faith in her friends to be able to ask that question repeatedly since she was feeling it. I know I stop myself and cut myself off from friends because I don’t want to talk about what’s really going on with me because I know they’ve heard it before.
But I digress. A few years ago this is how I summed up my life: “She was never more beautiful than when men were leaving her.” So I’ve been told I am beautiful more often than my fair share, but always as compensation for men not wanting to just be with me. My father sexually abused me and my mother neglected and sacrificed me, so my ugliness and my shame at that were hidden and more insidious for me to forgive and form that crucial relationship with myself first. And I’m only now beginning to glimpse what loving myself first means and getting a clue as to how to do it. And I have been luckier than Lucy because I have not had the distractions of fame and writing genius or the temptations of necessary painkillers to work through, and even then I’ve put it off until I’ve absolutely had to choose love myself or die, which I just can’t do to my two grown sons–miracles she also didn’t have.
It seemed to me as I was reading that Lucy’s self-love got seared along with the chemo at age 10 so Lucy’s friends, especially Ann, treated her like a loving parent of a 10-year old. They helped out with shelter and money and other basic needs, and they gave her unconditional love and patiently, sincerely asnwered her unending questions in an affirmative way. But they were also clear in their expectations of her behavior and didn’t let her off the hook. And it worked most of Lucy’s life and she went on to touch people’s lives and leave a legacy of inspiration for many. It’s nobody’s fault her body and soul just gave out too soon for those who loved her.
I am grateful today that Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett graced our lives by sharing their life lessons with us in their writing. And I hope Ann Patchett continues to grace my life with her lyrical, magical words so I can continue to be transformed by them in my own way.
I picked up Truth and Beauty on a whim because I love the other Ann P. books. I had no idea what it was about and much to my surprise my heart was wrentched out at the ending.
I grew up in a co-dependant family as my older brother has been a herion addict for most of our lives. I have been one of the main enablers and after many ruined relationships, lots of prison visits, and posting bail – I finally told him no-more. Its killing me. I pray for him daily but at the ripe old age of 45, I finally realized that he has to do this alone – I can not save him much to my great dismay. He is homeless now and it breaks my heart to know this – and to have read about Lucy’s demise- it only increases my sadness. I dont know the answer – other than we have to surrender ourselves to God and hopefully my brother one day can do the same.
Its very difficult not to want to help and save one another – as mentioned on this site, its our human condition – but I do beleive that we can only do so much and as hard as it is – people have to help themselves no matter what they have been through. If we find my brother one day dead from an overdoes, I have to know – its not my fault – I still struggle with wanting to go find him, take him in and protect him. After much prayer, I just know that he has to come around on his own
I love Ann’s book and I love Lucy now too – of course, I am always rooting for the underdog….I relate to both characters and place no judgements. Its just so very sad….
I picked up Truth & Beauty because Ann Patchett is, without par, my favorite fiction author. I have read all of her four novels and have been moved by each. Though each is quite unique and seemingly different from the others, I find a common thread through them all – Love – coming as a surprise in the most unlikely places and between the most disparate individuals; Love as a saving grace; Love that does not fit our traditional, romantic ideas of love but that is tranformative, transcendent, and amazing. That theme is certainly carried through in Truth & Beauty.
Ann’s consistancy in her love and support for Lucy throughout her tragically difficult life is, to me, nothing short of heroic. I too have recently lost a brother to a lifetime of alcoholism and addiction. And the lesson in that struggle and in Truth & Beauty is that, no matter how hard we try, how deeply we desire it, our love cannot fix, heal or control those damaged people in our lives who are set on a path to their own distruction. There are those among us who, though brilliant, gifted, beautiful shining stars, cannot be saved from their self-destructive impulses. Those impulses can lead them, as they did with Lucy, to do hurtful things and behave in ways that damage those around them. Our challenge, if we can keep our hearts open, is to learn to love them without being consumed and destroyed by them. It is no easy task. But although our love cannot ultimately save them, it does save us, and, I hope, it eases their passage through this life that is just too much for them.
I see in Truth & Beauty Ann Patchett’s attempt to work through the grief of the loss of her dearest friend, as well as her attempt to clarify for herself the personal meaning of this lifelong dance with Lucy and to find and relate the truth and the beauty of it. She has done a remarkable, beautiful, courageous job.
I found Truth and Beauty to be both. Working with drug addicts every day for thirty years has shown me how much pain is behind their addiction. It takes true courage to successfully achieve receovery from a heroin addiction. And yes, Ann shows signs of co-dependence. Unless you have walked in those shoes, do not pass judgement.
But I do not find Lucy’s addiction to be the core element of this book. It is a friendship between two womean who truly love each other, pure and simple. Are those who criticise Lucy so bereft of love in their own life that their anger colors their entire life? how sad for them.
So anyone critical of Lucy Grealy is “bereft of love”? “Ssuan” sounds like your typical bleeding-heart, dipsy-doodle social worker. Either that, or she was drunk when she wrote that. Really, the attempts here to canonize Grealy and make her atrocious behavior seem justified, are revolting. Even Grealy’s sister is critical of her. Suellen Grealy wrote a piece for The Guardian Review entitled “Hi-jacked By Grief”, in which she voices her displeasure at the way Ann Patchett has cashed in on her friendship with Grealy. The article states that although the parts describing their father in “Autobiography of a Face” were “unbearably true” a lot of the book was “careless”. Suellen said that Lucy selected her vantage point when describing her family, and that “readers would accept it as the only true vantage point”. As as result Suellens’s mother’s parenting skills (or lack of them) are the focus of questions in reading guides and book clubs. Suellen goes on to say that Patchett was a good friend to Lucy, “who could be infuriatingly disorganized and irresponsible”, and that she was able, it seemed, to accept Lucy’s constant need of approbation and affection, even when Lucy herself ignored, and even scorned, those needs in others”. Indeed, even the loyal Ann gets short shrift from Grealy; “when a review copy of Ann’s book, Taft, arrived by courier at my house in London, Lucy, staying with me, didn’t bother to open it. I wasn’t surprised by the way she tossed it dismissively on to chair, for she rarely showed interest, at least to me, in other people’s achievements. I felt sorry for Ann, then, because I knew how much she had done for my sister”. There is more to the article but the upshot is that the wonderful friend Ann Patchett has made her dear, dear friend Lucy into a source of money and fame. She told Suellen that she, Patchett, was working, writing, and living in “the Lucy factory”. She mentioned film rights. The more I learn about both Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett, the more dislikeable they appear. These two truly deserved each other. And I am not the only one who considers this bizarre “friendship” between “two women who truly love each other” nauseating. I came across a review of Joyce Carol Oates’s latest book, a collection of book reviews and observations. The writer, Brandon M. Stickney, comments on the section about Truth and Beauty: “Oates transports us to the memoir “Truth and Beauty” by Ann Patchett, in which the author describes her near lesbian, wholly infantile and repulsive relationship to tortured memoirist Lucy Grealy. What would seem drunken passion between two college age roomies—“In a second she was in my arms, leaping into me, her arms locked around my neck, her legs wrapped around my waist”—becomes horrifying considering Grealy’s disfiguring face cancer that makes her resemble a dying boy in a medieval Bosch”. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Cynthia….
I feel very, very sorry for a heart that lacks the ability to attempt to understand anothers grief and to offer compassion instead of condemnation. Your anger towards and dislike of Ann and Lucy seems far to great for just a critic. Perhaps you need to evaluate your motives.
Nicholas, I am deeply sorry for your loss. I did not personally know your sister, but I have read her work and it saddens me that one so talented was dimmed far too soon, by the unfortunate circumstances of her life.
I find this book to be a good picture of a complicated relationship. Lucy is certainly portrayed as a complex personality, deeply flawed in a human and touching way – capable of being fascinating, energetic, emotionally draining, exasperating, and demanding all at once. Ann seems almost too bland and too accommodating to have much depth…maybe that’s part of the author’s attempt to widen the dramatic contrast between the two personalities and focus tighter on their differences, which she certainly does.
I also found that the book revealed a typical enabler/addict pattern in the friendship (Ann being the typical enabler and Lucy the addict in various ways). Whether this is something to get angry about is beside the point, in my opinion. Truth & Beauty seems to be an honest portrait of at least one perspecitve on these people’s very human experience and shows how our own choices, as well as forces outside our control, can shape our lives and destinies.
I don’t understand why so many people here get caught up in arguing with each other about whose reaction to the book is “right.” That’s the point of a book, of a story, that each reader can have their own reaction. We each have our own “values.” I personally think any addict can be very hard to maintain a friendship with – that’s just one aspect of addiction’s destructive power – it destroys relationships, people, plans, dreams.
The magic of good literature, in my opinion, is that it can affect so many people differently and deeply. Apparently, it has affected the readers here. I found it an absorbing read, well worth my time.
I appreciate so many people thoughtfully reading and commenting on Ann Patchett’s book, and adding more colors and nuances to the view of the friendship between Ann and Lucy by voicing their perceptions. I think the Western world’s tendency to categorize (and thus, dismiss) human beings as winners and “losers”, strong and weak, addicts and codependents, (on and on), fosters so much alientation and loneliness. Although I was, at times, horrified at some of Lucy’s verbalizations and choices (especially when it came to being able to be empathic/aware of friends’ needs), I do see this as a stunning example of (as one blogger said) self-NEGATION rather than self-absorption. A person who does not have a clear sense of self, or their own worth, will SEEM to be self-absorbed, when truly, they might feel imprisioned by this pain and want nothing more than to be able to move into a larger world. I think Lucy tried hard to face down her demons and her fears—rushing headlong into the fire, as it were: standing up in front of the crowd at the college movie nights, dancing with abandon in bars, throwing herself into the arms of strangers to try to find “intimacy”. But what she got in return just sent her scrambling for another “mirror” (generally her friends) to try to see herself once again with compassion and love. I wish she had been able to find other ways to see her beauty and value. I wish this world saw more to women than their surface “attributes”. I wish the ending of the story had been different…but, as Ann said in her book, even though moving to Nashville to be with her friend might have saved Lucy’s life, at least for a time, that was not the life Lucy thought she needed.
I am grateful to both these writers and those on this site, for enlarging and continuing this discussion of friendship, vulnerability, judgement…etc.
Firstly, I was greatful to find this site, but I haven’t had a chance to endure reading through the enormous amount of material that people have written, although I think it is wonderful that you all are taking so much interest in Miss. Grealy. I actually just finished reading Ann Patchett’s book today and went online to search for more information about it. I just have a few comments to say because I believe some people are just being unfair and they really DON’T understand what it is like to live daily having a facial difference. In my own life I have personally experienced this and I identified with so many of the things Ann spoke about regarding Lucy. In a way I have to admire her as she was willing to put herself out there and actually had the guts/drive to enter into situations where her facial difference would potentially be brought up. In my own life I am still struggling to do this and I believe Lucy had a great amount of strength in her character throughout most of her life, obiviously her friends gave her some of this strength. Some people just honestly will never understand how difficult it is to be out in society and know that everyone is staring at you and “wondering” what happened to you. Do you know how difficult it was for me to simply go up to the counter at the bookstore and buy Autobiography of a Face? Most people wouldn’t think twice about buying a book that discusses disfigurement, but I did because I was scared that they would stare at my face and the little self-confidence that I had would be shattered again. I am not saying that one should forgive Lucy for all of her, what did you guys call it??? “Infantile behavior”… However, any form of facial difference can have a profound effect on an individual. Everyone has bad moments when they need a great deal of support and sympathy and Lucy is extremely lucky she had Ann. Everyone acts childish at one point or another in adult life so I do not think we should criticize Lucy for it. Instead, I think all of you that are so interested in determing whether Lucy was a saint or not should go to the Children’s Craniofacial Association website and help the thousands of children like Lucy that live with facial disfigurement today. That is http://www.ccakids.org. If nothing else you can learn more and hopefully educate others about individuals with facial differences so that it is not so hard in the future for people like Lucy.
i have just acqainted myself with the life of lucy grealy. i come to her very late and only wish that i had known her sooner. her life is a comment on how insensitive and cruel we all are and how superficial our perceptions are and thus, how shallow we allow our experiences to be. lucy was a stunninly beautiful human being under the surface. i feel enormously sad and empathic for the life she led and honor her courage and remarkable insights and the depth of her intellect. i am ashamed that i put such emphasis on the few zits i had as a teenager.
I just finished reading Ann Patchett’s “Truth and Beauty” and was very touched by the suffering of Lucy Grealey and the suffering caused by her. Having had personal experience of loving a person who was damaged and addicted, I felt much sorrow for Lucy and great empathy for Ann.
I enjoyed reading all the posts here and found value in all opinions, however I am puzzled by Cynthia’s obvious intolerance and judgement. First I will say that while Cynthia states early on that she also suffered much teasing and torment by her peers during her youth, she doesn’t appear to have taken anything away from that but anger and resentment. Anyone who judges others so harshly seems to have no depth of emotions. Nothing is black and white and a person’s faults and character defects do not prevent them from feeling and needing love. Each of us are born a blank slate, for the most part, and our personalities and traits, both good and bad are formed from our experiences and with the possible exception of true sociopaths, have much to love, even the worst of us. I also feel a little sorry for Cynthia since anyone who can make such sweeping judgements about someone else, especially when her knowledge of the person she is judging is based almost solely on the perceptions of another, must be very lonely herself.
It would seem that poor Dana is, uh, how shall I put it…mentally-disordered. She admonishes me for passing judgement on someone “based almost solely on the perceptions of another”, then proceeds to judge ME, a person she has never met and knows nothing about! Like I said, mentally-disordered. At least. But then, that’s true of all the Lucy-groupies who have congregated her. In their myopic view, Lucy Grealy is someone only to be admired and revered, someone whose suffering is justification for her life-long odious behavior, and anyone who dares to disagree with that proclamation is “bereft of love”, “lacks the ability to attempt to understand anothers grief and to offer compassion”, “judges others harshly”, why any person who doesn’t love little Lucy is just a big ol’ MEANIE! My pithy reply to all the Lucy-groupies is: you’re full of it. Just because I find Lucy Grealy appalling and unsympathetic does not mean I’m lonely, or that I lack compassion, you silly sob sisters (or brothers). I simply do not share the view of her as someone who deserved in life to be given everything, and as someone in death who deserves to be put up on a pedestal. I’m sorry Lucy Grealy had a cancer that disfigured her face. I’m sorry she was taunted by boys in school and men on the street. I’m sorry she could never find peace within herself, and sought relief through sex and drugs. I’m sorry her drug addiction finally destroyed her. She was a sad, pathetic woman. But her fate ultimately laid in her own hands, and she chose to go the route of the weak and helpless. She had a great deal, and she threw it all away. She would not do one single thing to help herself; she expected and/or hoped that her salvation would one day just drop in her lap. She played at therapy and would not even take the first step towards recovery, that is, admitting you are an addict. She treated other people like crap, and they took it because they were either severely codependent (like Ann Patchett) or extremely tolerant of their pitiful friend. She was a user, and she never grew up. Instead of being grateful for the things she had, she always wanted more of everything and was never ever satisfied. Her unhappiness was due in large part…to HER. The people I admire and have compassion for are people who face their demons and work to make their lives better. Here’s a quote from the book “Fear No Evil” by David Watson, a clergy-man who was dealing with terminal cancer. It concerns a young mentally-ill woman who had been sexually assaulted as a young girl, an act she kept re-living in her mind. It goes: “Although she was clearly not responsible for her tragic suffering as a young girl, she WAS responsible for her present responses to that suffering”. Realizing that she could change her life, the girl eventually recovered. Mr. Watson goes on to say: “In all our afflictions, it is not so much our situation that counts, but the way in which we react to it. And our reactions can affect, to a remarkable degree, the outcome of our lives”. I could have gone the same route as Lucy Grealy; I could have let my earlier life ruin every thing that came after. I could have tried to obliterate my distress with anonymous sex and drug adddiction. But I didn’t. Everyone has the ability to save him or herself. Lucy Grealy made the choice not to, choosing to medicate herself into oblivion. I have no respect or compassion for someone who takes the easy way out. And if the Lucy-groupies can’t comprehend valuing fortitude over self-enforced weakness, then I feel sorry for THEM.
Cynthia, yet again you appear to see things in extremes and your responses seem (yes, again I said seem) excessive and intolerant. I can’t quite understand the vehemence with which you express your opinion though again I believe it is driven by your own pain and experience. You are entitled to your opinion, and you certainly make plenty if sense, on many levels but should allow others their opinions without resorting to the “last gasp of the ignorant”, name calling and insults.
I finished Truth and Beauty two days ago, and found this site while trying to learn more about both Lucy and Ann. This beautifully book lingers with me. Since finishing it, I have been thinking about it, and the posts on this site. To me, the beauty of the book is the pure, non-judgemental love that Ann has for Lucy. She vividly portrays Lucy’s flaws, as well as her endearingly fun and ready to try one more time attitude. And even tho she is well away of Lucy’s self centered, needy, even selfish traits, she truely loves her. Her love does not judge. What this love gives to Ann in return is so well expressed when Ann describes how she is a “native speaker” with Lucy. “Whenever I saw her, I felt like I had been living in another country, doing moderately well in another language, and thenshe showed up speaking English and suddently I could speak with all the complexity and nuance that I hadn’t even realized was gone. With LUcy I was a native speaker”. This is one of the best tributes to love that I’ve read.
Though I had a more-sympathetic reading of the book than Cynthia, it can be difficult to be the one who dares voice a minority opinion.
Cynthia, I agree with others that some of your reactions are “intense”, for lack of a more descriptive word — but not more so than others who have taken the opportunity to post what appear to be segue ways into airing their own tales of tragedy. If the book inspired strong feelings, then you were brave to put those out there, no matter how unpopular your message or your delivery may be. I don’t agree with all your points, but your last post was right on target and made a good argument — whether you find Lucy sympathetic or not, it’s hard to argue that she couldn’t be infuriating. I think Patchett’s book corroborates that view.
Whoever said it above was right — the value is not in making sure all our opinions are the same; rather, it lies in how varied (and obviously how STRONG!) our responses to a book can be.
I found the book, Truth and Beauty, fascinating. After reading it, I am ever more so grateful that I have not been burdened with a drug addiction issue or a cancer that left me disfigured. Actually, I quit smoking after college for 12 years and then had “one”, when I experienced an episode of depression. It took me 5 years to quit after that. Was I weak, lazy, pathetic? Some might say so. My experience was one of addictive struggle which gave me insight and compassion for those with bigger addictions. I am very disciplined but have/had a flaw. (Cynthia apparently has none; I only hope she has no children, and if so, that they have someone else in their lives to love and accept them.) Our world is not kind to those who are different. I have compassion for Lucy’s pain. I appreciate Ann’s attraction and dedication to such an incredible life force, albeit a destructive one. The debates going on this site bring to mind a passage from Wally Lamb’s book by a psychiatrist to her patient, who is the brother of a man with a mental illness, also seen by the psychiatrist. (paraphrased) “What makes you think that you can change the course of the river.” Whereby, I do not think our lives are run by fate, I do not think that we have as much control as some people think. We are, many of us, flawed human beings. The life experiences we have can accent our genetics, but who we are is incredibly tied to our DNA. We are trying to figure things out and we get stuck. I think that we can choose to support people and yet keep a protective distance but Ann could not “fix” Lucy, she could just love her in the best way she knew. And I agree that we are reading each author’s perspective on their life. It is true for them. We ALL experience life differently, even the exact same moment.
I agree with Skye. Truth and Beauty is about a complicated and loving relationship. Ann Patchett and Lucy must be pretty darn good writers for all of us to sit down and write ourselves. Truth? Beauty? It’s all in the eye of the beholder.
It’s interesting to read the differing opinions here. I seem to have touched a nerve in several people; it seems that if you do not have total, unconditional love, compassion, and acceptance for someone who feels “pain”, even if the person in question is a self-absorbed, completely in denial drug addict, then you are just a terrible, terrible person indeed. There is a name for people like Ssuan, Jimmie, Dana, Mary, etc.: enablers. My friend Jennifer, a social worker, is a recovering addict. She has been clean for 15 years now. She has a great deal of compassion for anyone trying to recover from drug addiction (she sponsers several people), but she would have zero patience for Lucy Grealy, a addict who thought she was “above” being an addict. I mentioned the book Truth and Beauty to her, and told her of how Grealy’s friends were always “there” for her, how they provided her with unceasing tolerance and acceptance, along with food, money, and shelter. Jennifer had two words to say: “oh…enablers”. Whatever “pain” Lucy Grealy experienced does not justify the shitty way she treated other people. She treated Ann Patchett like dirt, like DIRT, but being the co-dependent doormat that she is, Patchett loved every minute of it. The story of Truth and Beauty is not one of love and friendship; it is a tale of two very disturbed young women who fed on each other’s weaknesses. I could not understand why Lucy Grealy did not reach out to other cancer patients. It might have given her aimless, tawdry life some much needed meaning and purpose. Cancer patients would come to her book readings wanting to tell her of their own experiences, but Grealy would dismiss them rudely. Patchett’s charitable explanation for Grealy’s nastiness is that Lucy did not want to be known for having cancer, she wanted to be known for being a good writer. Well, her one literary success was a memoir about having cancer; did she really think that people would not want to share with her, having related to the book’s story of suffering and recovery? Was Grealy really that dense? Apparently so. Actually Grealy thought that having cancer was no big thing; it was the ugliness that resulted from it that was the real agony. If only Grealy had not been so obsessed with her face! There are many, many women who have been disfigured who have endured and gone on to lives of much fulfillment and happiness. It’s possible, anything is possible if you are willing to look for something bigger than yourself, something to care for and believe in, besides YOURSELF. And Mary dear, I hope that if YOU have children they don’t become addicted to any harmful substance, because if they do you will no doubt enable them right into an early grave, much as Lucy Grealy’s friends did for her.
Cynthia must have read one self-help book dealing with addiction. She certainly learned all about “enabling”. She is absolutely correct in most of her facts. About addiction, weakness, selfishness, etc. She obviously has very strong feelings about the subject, Ann Patchett’s book not withstanding. However, she overdoes it a bit with all the “if you do not have total, unconditional love, compassion, and acceptance for someone who feels “pain”, even if the person in question is a self-absorbed, completely in denial drug addict, then you are just a terrible, terrible person indeed.” and “that’s true of all the Lucy-groupies who have congregated her. In their myopic view, Lucy Grealy is someone only to be admired and revered, someone whose suffering is justification for her life-long odious behavior, and anyone who dares to disagree with that proclamation is “bereft of love”, “lacks the ability to attempt to understand anothers grief and to offer compassion”, “judges others harshly”, why any person who doesn’t love little Lucy is just a big ol’ MEANIE!”. If Cynthia would READ most of the post’s instead of basking in her self-determined superiority and thinking about her next post she might notice that most people have also read that self-help book and further, are neither “bleeding-heart, dipsy doodles” or self-righteous Cynthias with all the answers. There is some middle ground here and most of the people that have posted here are standing on it. Cynthia just can’t see them from her lofty perch. My twelve-stepping friends also say that they will not risk their own sobriety by enabling or otherwise dealing with an addict/alcoholic who is unwilling to help themselves and become healthier, happier, more productive citizens but they also understand the addict/alcoholic better than anyone and feel compassion for their pain. Maybe especially because it’s self-inflicted.
How hard it is to see someone as “both/and” instead of “either/or”! The heartbreaking aspect of Patchett’s book is that she sees (and describes) very clearly the way Lucy could be childish, careless and infuriating, and she squirmed at that, especially in the last yuears of Lucy’s life. But over 20 years, Patchett had also known the talent, energy, wit and fun of this unique personality, and that side also coem through clearly in her book.
If we look at the book as an exercise in pathology we miss the point — it is an attempt to describe a unique and highly contradictory human being, warts and all. I certainly took away an indelible portrait of Lucy and the mystery of both these talented women. Who knows why we love a certain person through thick and thin, through temperamental differences, maddening irresponsibilities and periods of self destructive behavior? I myself would probably have not been able to deal with the clinging, self-indulgent and unlikeable side of Lucy, but how can any of us facilely condemn Ann Patchett for doing so? Patchett loved and grieved for her volatile, fascinating and doomed friend, because she knew her “in the round.” She does not seem to have framed her life around Lucy, however, even though offering an extraordinary safety net over the years. She has gone her own way, written her books, formed other lasting relationships, and become an outstanding literary presence whose specialty seems to be the persistent ambiguity of love.
Finally, is any writer who portrays a real person to be accused of “exploiting” that person? A lot of non-fiction writers struggle here, and I imagine Patchett did too, but at least decided to honor the uniqueness of her friend and their friendship as she did.
I lost my best friend to soft-tissue cancer (form of sarcoma) like Ms.Patchett. Michel Foucault once said that we write to BE, not necessarily to prove something or some other reason. So, I think writing is one of these profound acts we do to engage in living and being. Ok I am not here to debate Foucault, but I think he is on to something. I see it in this blog phenonemnon so very clearly– all these faceless, soundless voices … of people compelled to say something (some more than others, of course). This is clear here, as well. It seems we all find, in some way, engaged in the problem which Patchett presents us: how do we live, how do we love?
The answer I find is this continual exercise of transcending ourselves. Our own culure’s aversion to suffering clearly demonstrates some sort of discomfort with being grounded in our bodies– thus perhaps limited in our ability to ‘get’ outside ourselves and do/think/act/love– LIVE.
I have nothing to say about these women except that they were (and are) human beings in the truest sense, in that they engaged fearlessly (obviously in different ways) with life. Grealy had her own battles and we can pass judgement if we please, but is this really helping us to connect with anything? Does judgement get us anywhere?
For some(ahem) I am one more sentimental poop. Thanks, I will remember that when I see your child suffer when I know I can help (say, with my kidney or bone marrow). Or I vote to send her to war. Because, afterall, I can’t save every one. Every ONE (1) should fend for themselves. We are indeed individuals with unique agency. (note the sarcasm please)
Everything changes when you suffer or see it. All I will say, in this admittedly long ramble, is judge not lest ye be judged. Love thy neighbor as thyself. And when someone slaps you, turn the other cheek. This is life and living. As is the struggle to live this message, which to some degree, we are all engaged in.
Where does my own dear friend fit in? Now I wonder if I should ever write a memoir to honor her…seeing as how indeed many might totally miss the point and (even ignoring the wishes of her own family, as here I am even doing so–for which i apologize) go off debating someone LIFE– their LIFE, a whole entire LIFE– as if they themselves were God… With my friend, I perhaps will continue to confine my honor of her to the way in which I live my life. Indeed, she lives on in this way.
Let us live and let live.
Indeed, I see so much hope in how much love and acceptance I DO see on this site and book. To others in whom I can’t quite see it, I only hope you will learn to love everyone as yourself and I thank you for expressing your voices. For at the very least, they give others’ context and alternatives.
a hazy 24 plus non/fiction
Friday night BART scene Originally uploaded by c(h)ristine. i must have been tired (the picture to the right here is from Friday night, before my sleep marathon). i have spent 16 out of the last 24 hours, sleeping. a sort of reverse ratio. why don’t i…
I read Truth and Beauty a few weeks ago and haven’t been able to stop thinking of it since then. I had not ready Lucy’s book, so I ordered it and just finished reading it yesterday.
I’ve read most of the comments on this blog, and what I find interesting is that I agree with most of them, even those that differ. What touched me about the story and about Lucy is that she did not seem to be just any one of these things: she was not simply self-absorbed, heroic, childish, brave… she was all these things. Why do we so want to categorize her?
The story Ann told painted a picture of a troubled, complex woman who wanted more than anything to be loved. Even while all her friends loved her, Lucy did not believe she was loved in the way she wanted to be. She craved a kind of intimacy that would take her outside herself and make her see herself as someone worthy and beautiful. She used her surgeries as a vehicle to a place of self-acceptance, but she never really got there.
What struck me the most about this story was how accurate Ann Patchett’s portrayal of Lucy seemed to be. After I read Ann’s book, I had a strong impression of Lucy, and this impression stayed after I read Lucy’s book. Ann seemed to really know and love this woman, and the love she had was complicated and at times anguished. But isn’t that what a true friendship really is? Don’t be at times get very frustrated with our friends, even dislike them and find ourselves searching for what brought us to them in the first place?
Lucy and Ann had a relationship that I don’t really understand, but I don’t need to. I haven’t experienced a friendship that asks so much of me and, at times, gives so little. I haven’t been through the extraordinary trauma Lucy went through her entire life, and yet sometimes I feel as unlovable as she did. Sometimes I feel that way and my face is fine; I am not sick. I have not been tormented most of my life.
But despite that, I can relate to the emotional frailty of Lucy and the protective love Ann felt for her. I don’t really need to understand their love. I’m just glad I got such a powerful glimpse into it.
My mother died of cancer when I was twenty. People wanted to talk about her, to tell me something essential about who she was but I only felt the loss of her complex, contradictory presence more. She was most absolutely gone as they forgot the detail of her.
Lucy seems like someone readers want to constrain to a type, someone who people need to fit into their view of the world. How could a friend stand that endless rewriting of Lucy’s headstone? If that friend is a writer herself, all she can do is offer a story of someone alive.
I just finished T&B and had to google “Lucy Grealy” which led me to this site. I enjoy Patchett’s work, but until T&B had never heard of Lucy G. I loved the book, loved Lucy, loved Ann. I’m blown away by the judgmental comments of most of the bloggers. Was Lucy good or bad? Were Lucy and Ann co-dependent? Did they have some lesbian-esque relationship? Get over it, People! One of the most remarkable attributes of T&B is the truthfulness w/ which Patchett tells the story of the amazing Lucy. She tells it through her own lense — not attempting to pretty up the story of Lucy, the way so many memoirists might. It’s a remarkable work about two remarkable women.
Oh, Oh!
I just finished “Truth and Beauty.” About a quarter of the way through, I started thinking this was a complicated relationship with some wonderful aspects — and some pretty sick aspects. By the end of the book, I felt the sick aspects predominated.
I googled Lucy Grealy, knowing nothing about her, and was surprised at how attractive she was. After reading the book, I was expecting the female equivalent of the Elephant Man. This was not a hideous woman, not by a long chalk. Her endless obsessions with improving her face in order to find happiness were ultimately founded on something other than reality.
She certainly was fascinating, at least in Anne Pratchett’s book, but I didn’t like her. She seemed to be a bottomless pit of need. That’s one of the saddest things that pain (emotional or physical) can do to a person — it can make them completely self-centered and ultimately lonely. Or, as others here have pointed out, it can strengthen them. It’s all in what we do with it. Lucy identified herself by her pain; she *was* her disfigurement. And that’s a shame, because she could’ve been so much more.
As for Anne … I have thoroughly enjoyed her fiction and was blown away by “Bel Canto.” In this book, she shows herself to be nearly as complex and puzzling as Lucy herself. In the end, I didn’t see this as a wonderful story of a beautiful, loving friendship at all but as something else, something obsessive and needy on both sides, with points of light and grace amidst the considerable murk. A fascinating, compulsively readable, suffocating book that I’m ultimately happy to put away.
I did a Google search of “Lucy Grealy interview”, just to see what I came up with. I wanted to see if I could find an interview where Grealy might actually give a little insight as to why she was so self-absorbed and self-destructive. And I came up with an amazing (and disturbing) transcription of a seminar on behalf of the New York State Writers Institute. It seems that Grealy had a positively virulent attitude towards her family, her mother in particular. Here are some of the questions and Grealy’s answers:
Question: You said we can ask you anything. I think I remember from your memoir, do you have a twin sister? I was just wondering where she was during all this?
Grealy: “Yes, I do have a twin sister, but, alas, I neglect to mention that she is my non-identical twin. My family was absent. It was a very isolated experience when I was ill, and it really didn’t include my family very much.”
Faulkner: You had said something earlier today, that one can read between the lines on a number of things. Recount, if you would, your mother’s reaction. You said that your family didn’t talk much about the book.
Grealy: “My family never talked to me much about the book. After the book came out I was interviewed in People magazine and there was a line about how I was quoted as saying that my family wasn’t very communicative. I went to go to visit my mother shortly after this and she kind of walked into the middle of the living room and she said “I don’t know why we’re not communicative,” and then she turned around and walked out. It just summed it up.”
Question: How do you feel about your childhood experiences now? Are you still dealing with memories of childhood?
Grealy: “I think it sucks. I’m still in therapy figuring it out. Some are just coming up. My psychiatrist keeps saying things like, “Your mother did what? Your sister did what?” It’s very gratifying. It’s great when your own psychiatrist is outraged by your mother.”
Question: Were your mother and father abusive verbally or physically when you were young?
Grealy: “They weren’t physically, but they weren’t very nice to me, that’s for sure. I have to bring that up with my psychiatrist. They could ignore my sister, where my situation demanded that attention be paid to me, and I don’t think my mother was particularly interested in doing that, so, it’s a very boo-hoo kind of tale.”
Question: Have you ever thought about writing a book about your family?
Grealy: “Ew, icky. No. They’re nuts. I don’t want to deal with them. They would just get mad at me, and they’re already mad at me, so…I have a very bad relationship with my family.”
Question: How was your relationship with your dad, and did you have any brothers?
Grealy: “I had two brothers. I had no relationship with them until I was older, and then one of them died. My father was very absent, too, and then he died. As I said earlier, it’s always the good parent that dies. It’s a very interesting phenomena, but it’s true.”
Well, well, well. I think this interview with Grealy explains a LOT. She came from a family that did not have an easy time of it, to put it mildly. A father who drank and died young. A brother with schizophrenia, who also died young. A daughter diagnosed with cancer. And yet, for Grealy none of these things count for anything; it is ALL, or should be ALL, about HER. Her parents “weren’t nice” to her?! What the hell is Grealy’s definition of nice? Having her paretn’s entire world revolve around her? There was four other children in that household; I would think that they would need a fair amount of attention, even if they didn’t have cancer. Her family was “absent”? Well, just where were they, then? In AOAF, Grealy, when in the hospital, calls her mother the “Visitor Extraordinare”. Grealy says her mother was “not particularly interested” in paying attention to her. Maybe by Grealy’s standard, her mother was disinterested, Grealy’s standard being “I am the center of the Universe, and if I do not have your full and total attention at all times, you are a pathetic excuse for a mother”. Grealy’s opinion of her mother is revolting: “It’s great when you own psychiatrist is outraged by your mother”, “it’s always the good parent (her father) that dies”. Jesus Christ! Lucy Grealy’s mother had a husband with a drinking problem who died young, five children, one with severe mental problems (the brother), one with cancer AND severe mental problems (Grealy). I think the poor woman had some just cause for being harried and pre-occupied. But none of this seems to occur to Grealy. After reading this transcript, it became clear to me that Grealy’s need to be the center of attention, the special one, the one whose needs should be catered to at all time, was truly pathological. She had not one shred of compassion or sympathy for her mother or her family, none of whom had a smooth road in life. The needs of other human beings meant nothing to Lucy Grealy. She later goes on to say during the questioning: “it made me appreciate that I really did have a difficult set of circumstances when I was growing up. I came through pretty well, considering those circumstances, which wasn’t something I was willing to admit prior to the writing of the book. I didn’t know my mother was a bad mother for a long time; I just thought that was what mothers did. It was only after I wrote the book that I realized, wow, I had a really difficult childhood. I didn’t grow up in a concentration camp,a dn I didn’t have any cigarette burns on my body, but I suffered in a lot of other ways”. The oldest excuse in the world: I’m a fuckup, and it’s my MOTHER’S fault! Lucy Grealy’s family WAS there during her illness. They were there the whole time. But they did not give her every single bit of their attention, 100 percent, every day, all day, the way she wanted. She was a bottomless pit, even then. What a pathetic human being Lucy Grealy was, to disparage her family because they could not live up to her expectations, her expectations being inhuman in dimension. I had little regard for the character of Lucy Grealy before, and I have even less now, it that’s possible. I feel a lot of sadness for her mother. What a terrible time she must have had. SHE is the one who deserves compassion.
After finishing Truth and Beauty I found myself searching for more information regarding Grealy and Patchett, thus stumbling across this ongoing debate. As with everything in this life, there are at least two sides to most stories. It is not difficult to acquire a sour taste for Grealy after reading Truth and Beauty. People, myself included, tend to have a great deal of disgust for self-centered individuals and rightfully so. I do believe that Grealy’s self-doubt and self-hatred wore the mask of narcissism. Patchett has received criticism for her actions and reactions to Grealy’s behavior, and blame has been carelessly thrown about in an effort to attain what exactly? I do not believe that Patchett wrote this book for fame or money or nominating herself for canonizaton. I believe she wrote this book because so much of her life had been tied up in trying to keep Lucy up and on her feet, literally and metaphorically. It is a full-time position when you try to maintain another person’s mental health, and perhaps some would criticize the gesture in and of itself. That is infact the nature of many relationships, healthy or not. For whatever reason, or lack of reason, some people need constant reassurance of worth and love and purpose. Lucy Grealy was desperate for justification, and Ann Patchett simply could not deny her of this need. That is friendship; seeing the disturbing pieces of a human and choosing to see past them when the whole world is ready to stop and point fingers and assess blame. Heroin addiction is a sad and dark love affair. It is a constant search for being in the light and for feeling momentarily hopeful. The seducing power of a relationship with heroin is relentless and consuming. Cynthia has repeatedly referred to Grealy as pathetic. Several others have posted stories of those they know recovering from cancer and other painstaking ordeals and continuing to live life without succumbing to drugs or alcohol. Addiction is human in every form. No matter how much we have we will still want more. Grealy just wanted more. She liked what it felt like to be in the light of self-assuring attention and she enjoyed it openly and shamelessly. Heroin gave her that light when she exhausted all of her other resources, including Patchett. Life will always be about the give and take. It is easy to see Grealy as the one doing all of the taking in this relationship, but not all acts of giving present themselves for viewing. They are rather like shells on the ocean floor waiting silently for the ocean to toss them haphazardly into the light on the shore. It is these acts that reflect truth and beauty. It is these acts that are carried silently, deep in flesh. Ann carried, and continues to carry, Lucy simply because it was harder to put her down.
There are some very good comments here. I also didn’t like Lucy very much after reading Ann’s book, and my feelings didn’t change after reading Lucy’s book. I felt more compassion for her but still thought she was someone who would’ve driven my crazy.
However, I agree with some of you that the relationship was complicated and even perhaps unhealthy, but both Lucy and Ann got something out of it. Lucy demanded a lot of attention and care; she needed Ann, and Ann seeemed to also need her. As is the case with many codependent relationships, both parties reveled in their individual roles and were reluctant to relinquish them.
My sister is a drug addict, so I can understand the demands an addictive person can place on a family member. My sister has made some critical mistakes in her life that have resulted in her losing custody of her children. She has lied to me and the rest of the family. She is in her 40s and is living with my parents right now and dependent on them. She monopolizes my parents’ attention and seldom every calls me unless she needs something. But given all this, I still cannot bring myself to end my relationship with her or to stop helping her.
Regarding Lucy’s feelings about her family, I am reluctant to make a judgment. We don’t know much about her relationship with her mother while she was growing up. It does seem like as an adult Lucy was hard on her mother, but there is too much that is unknown for me to say Lucy is simply selfish and bitter. I was shocked at how Lucy described her mother’s actions during Lucy’s cheo treatment. I thought her behavior was insensitive and distant, but this account could certainly have been skewed by Lucy.
The one feeling I was left with after reading Ann’s book was relief. I was relieved that Lucy died, relieved for Ann. I know that sounds terrible, but I was. I also felt very sad for the life Lucy lived, the pain she went through, and the pain she inflicted on other people like Ann.
Hmm, a site almost completely composed of comments by Women–exc. for Lucy’s bro & that kind man, “Richard.” I’m always getting e-mails from women about how wonderful women are & how “I cdn’t hv survived w/o my female friends,” & I’m told, “Send this on to all the wonderful women in your life.” Well, some of the women who have posted to this site exemplify the reasons I DON’T send these panegyrics along: labelling, judgmentalism, holier-than-thou-ism.
E.g., “I have had sorrow in my life & I handled it much better than Lucy did, blah blah.” Excuse me, but YOU are not the UNIVERSE. Some people handle things well, some badly.
To me, the ugliest word in the English language is “should.” “Lucy should have done & been this, Ann should have done & been that.” They were the way they were, they reacted the way they did.
Plus, What they both were/are beyond question is much better writers than ANY of you are or I am! So lay off all this judgmentalism & take their stories into yourself & see what they tell you about human nature & female nature. (That’s not a “should,” just a suggestion.)
I would very much like to know if there is any true story out there about a similar friendship betw MEN & how it compares. Any suggestions?
To my delight, I stumbled upon this website, looking for ways to contact Ann Patchett. Never before have I felt compelled to contact an author after reading a book. Through her heartfelt words, she painted a portrait of a friendship, stunning in its beauty and so very human in its heartache.
This book had a very personal impact on me. I am truly blessed with a friendship on the level of closeness shared by Ann and Lucy—no codependency (as some readers viewed it), but a total acceptance and love for another person. The book, also read by my best friend, left us with no judgment or criticism of author or character, but provoked a discussion and re-examination of our friendship. It has become a vehicle for us to reaffirm our love and devotion to one another. At the same time, we realized our relationship is a “work in progress.” It has allowed us to expose our warts and weaknesses as friends, and quite honestly as human beings. We both were able to admit we’ve had “Lucy” moments in the course of our 20-year friendship.
I was happy to see Patricia Sweeney ask if there are similar friendships; though she wants to know if one exists between men, I am curious if any reader, man or woman, could relate to this friendship. Did anyone see herself or himself as the “Ann” or the “Lucy” in a friendship? Did anyone’s friendship go through a painful, honest reassessment, sharing its vulnerability after reading the book? In this day and age when most people do not have the time or energy to put into such friendships, I suspect such relationships are esoteric, or are they?????
Can someone please tell me how Lucy died?
Lucy died of an accidental heroin overdose in December 2002, at the age of 39.
Amazing. I have not been back to this site for 2 months-still going strong. I appreciate Patricia’s comment, but I’m 65 and I think a general rule of life is that most people cut each other more slack as we get older. Cynthia makes this place interesting, even if I feel, and most of the others feel, that she is too tough. But, Lucy’s comments about her mother kind of surprised me, I have to admit. I know a woman-mid 40’s, with a husband and two kids. Very nice. But she had an argument with her mother-70’s- at Christmas, and they are now not talking. And she is the only child. It’s hard to cut someone slack for being tough publicly on a parent, but who hasn’t made horrific mistakes? I don’t think men typically want relationships with men as intense as Lucy and Ann had. Somehow when Ann went to visit Lucy in Scotland it felt right, but for a man to do it would seem excessive to me, unless it was a brother, cousin, maybe. I don’t know. The question made me think. When I was 28 a friend of mine went to a Boston Hospital for cancer and other termianl illnesses – the Shattuck(?)- at least that is what I thought the hospital was for at the time. I visited him once a week- 45 minutes at a time for a year or so. A trip to Europe would have been unthinkable. When I put it in that perspective, it makes me think that this was a real friendship. Maybe it could be labeled codependency, but Lucy was glad to see her when she needed a friend.
richard
I actually do know two men who’ve had a relationship like this. One is married, the other not. While you could say one was definitely there for the other in times of great need, you could also say their relationship was suffocating and enmeshed in a way that looks pretty twisted to the rest of us in their circle. The one more obviously in great need is essentially a borderline personality — a friend of mine, bright, of great charm and magnetism, but who has the same black hole of neediness that Lucy had.
I use the past tense for their relationship, because the supposedly needier one has broken it off, and the other is reacting in much the way you’d expect in such a friendship — as though he’s had a divorce. I thought of them while reading Ann’s story. As I said earlier, I do think there are elements of real grace and love in these friendships. But overall, they strike me as twisted.
Just finished Truth and Beauty. Awaiting the arrival of Lucy’s book from Amazon. I found an article Lucy’s sister wrote criticing Ann for writing the details of her sister’s life. It was sad but shouldn’t surprise me- a life like Lucy’s probably leaves those left behind with every emotion there is to feel. Too bad her sister can’t appreciate the fullness and the flaws of Lucy’s life. She goes on to refer to Ann as a not too gifted writer. I certainly disagree with that.
The thing is, my life is nothing like Lucy’s and outrwardly couldn’t look more unlike hers- buy I can identify with the feelings. The difference is that I don’t let those feelings drown me- but I grew up with a ‘normal’ life and Lucy didn’t. God give her some peace, where ever she is now.
Brain Damage
A doctor friend explained to me that Lucy’s body could have been stunted and her hormonal state disrupted by radiation damage to the pituitary gland i.e. brain damage. And, who knows, perhaps her personality disorder also had the same origin.
Both Ann’s book & Lucy’s are very readable. Lucy’s seems deeper. But I was surprised that neither of them related to feminism, nor made any points about the way that appearances are a particular tyranny for women and tthat women working together can DO something about that.
Instead, Lucy hung out with transvestites. She could have learned from them that femininity is a masquerade you can put on or take off. Instead she engaged in isolated rebellion, such as not looking in the mirror for a few months. Too bad she didn’t connect with other women who take that sort of rebellion as a matter of course and could have led her further.
Well well well!
What a hoot to stumble upon this website and find that there are people before me who have done the exact same thing: Read ‘Truth & Beauty’ at a voracious pace, then jumped on the computer to find out more about Lucy Grealy (on Google, specifically)! 🙂 I must admit, as someone else did earlier, that I have only read bits and pieces of this discussion, but enough to get a very broad view of what other readers have reacted to in the book. To be quite honest, I don’t know what to say, or how to react to everything that has been said. Though books are always a great point of discussion, I don’t really understand the need to get so worked up! If anything, Ann Patchett should be pleased that her novel has sparked such lively dialogue. And in the end, it will only be her who knows the true nature of this relationship.
Regardless of anyone’s perceptions of Ann or Lucy, ‘Truth and Beauty’ was really a great story of unconditional love. Or at least I found it to be so. To Patchett’s credit (and she did admit that she came close to walking out of Lucy’s life), it takes a great deal of strength and sacrifice to be a completely unwavering friend. There are a precious few people in this world who have that capacity to love someone, be it a friend or lover, in a no-holds-barred sort of way. (Being someone who is in a relationship with a man who Loves like this, it is definitely something to be marveled at. I still wonder how he can look at me when I’m upset and tell me he loves me!) As I’m sure many of us are aware, loving someone is not always the easiest thing in the world. It’s difficult to love someone who has hurt your feelings, or angered you, or done something you don’t agree with. It takes an impressive human being to say “I love you” back, no matter what the circumstances may be, no matter how painful it may be to say it.
My wish for Ann Patchett is that, in this second part of her life — “The Part Without Lucy” — is that she find a friend who will find it in their hearts to be *her* pillar of strength, through both good and bad.
In fact, I wish that for all of you here.
One thing that struck me as I was reading Truth and Beauty is that some people–usually women it seems–are willing to endure a lot more in terms of a “friendship” than they would in terms of a romantic relationship. If Ann had been dating a man who was like Lucy, I wonder if she would’ve stayed with him.
No criticism here. Just wondering.
This is the first book I’ve read in a long time that I immediately wanted to recommend to someone else but then need to stop and think carefully about which friend I should choose.
I think that everyone is forgetting that “Autobiography of a Face” was not writen on pure fact. It even states at the end that when she went to that book signing with Ann, Lucy made the coment that it was fiction. She did not remember everything and if she were to have written the book as a memior then it would be to painful for the reader. This book is based on events in her life the the actual event. Think of it as a Lifetime Original Movie.
One thing I thought was almost unbearably sad was that Lucy so wanted to be a
poet and to be recognized for her writing. And while I haven’t read her book
yet, it seems that the response to it was really more of a reaction to what
had happened to her. Not ‘oh, she’s such a great writer,’ but ‘oh, that poor
girl …’ That must have bothered her so much. And then to try to follow that
up with a second book that couldn’t possibly have had the same kind of impact.
No wonder she never wrote the novel.
She must have been a wonderful writer to have told her story in a way that
touched people so deeply, but it’s sad to think that she probably will be
remembered more for her medical and emotional problems than for her literary
contributions.
Patchett’s book won’t change that (in fact it may only add to it) but it will
insure that people see Lucy as she really was (or at least as one person who
loved her saw her) and that they don’t try to remake her into a saint or a
martyr.
My other reaction after reading all these conflicting opinions is that I hope
Lucy wherever she is knows that people are still reading about her, writing
about her, talking about her, arguing about her, crying over her, calling her
names, criticizing her friends and family and focusing attention on her. Too
bad she had to die to get what she always wanted.
I just finished reading Ann Pathcett’s Truth and Beauty and jsut like most of the reviewers on this site, logged on to the internet to find out more about Lucy and Ann. I have mixed feelings about this book. I am glad I found this website to exchange opinions about it.
My reaction to Truth and Beauty does not seem similar to the reactions of many of you. When I had already read half way through the book, I had already developed skeptical feelings towards Ann. I always questioned her motive for writing all this. I think all throughout the book Ann highlighted Lucy’s helplessness and portrayed her own self as a helpful and supportive friend. I don’t call this a friendship. If certain favors are genuinly done, then they are better not said or mentioned by the doers. If Ann was a true friend, then I do not think she would have revealed all the privacy about Lucy’s life. She would have respected Lucy.
After finishing the book, I came to believe that Lucy’s success story was not a source of happiness for Ann. I think there was always some kind of jealousy. Ann did not have the socially outgoing personality as Lucy had. Ann was not only academically, but also socially jealous of Lucy’s skills and talents. This book was an opportunity for Ann to open up all the back stage details of Lucy’s past and stabilize her own position in the foreground of Lucy’s success story. I do not like Ann. And I am glad I do not have friends like her.
I think this book presents the co-dependent relationship of two women. I have compassion and empathy towards Lucy. I don’t see her as manipulative. If other people have been manipulated by Lucy, then that is because they wanted to act that way, they were never forced to do anything. And Lucy was socially capable of acting as a social magnet. Lucy was an extraordinary character that everyone wanted to keep in their lives in one way or an other.
Ann’s favors and help towards Lucy cannot be ignored. While I appreciate her support towards Lucy, I also think that there was some sort of self-serving motive involved in her actions. It may be argued that Lucy’s neediness made Ann feel better about herself. Perhaps her Catholic background was also influential in motivating her towards helping other people in need.
I am glad to see everyone respected Nicolas’ wishes!?
I see nothing wrong with Ann Patchett’s observations and testiments about Lucy Grealy in her essays and in her story “Truth and Beauty.” Part of an author’s job is to write ‘ the truth,’ no matter how ugly it may be. Ann Patchett first handedly experinced Lucy Grealy, therefore has the validity & right to write about what she saw and experienced (as long as it is an accurate account). People may argue that Ann Patchett’s writings were damaging to Lucy Grealy’s repuation or that she betrayed her trust; however Ann Patchett spoke the truth & exposed certain perspectives to her readers; which is a main objective for a writer.
I am astonished that no one has yet offered the perspective of the guilt that Ann Patchett must have felt when she found out that Lucy was dead. Recall that Lucy died in New York City, alone, while Ann was in town. Ann, however, had made the decision not to call Lucy or see her FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER. That is, the first time Ann decided to enjoy New York unclouded by her relationship with Lucy, Lucy died. Can you imagine how she must have felt? So, I interpret Ann writing Truth and Beauty in part to exorcise that incredible demon. Her honesty in writing about her conflicted feelings about Lucy is part nostalgia, part apology, and mostly catharsis.
Just finished T&B, but haven’t read Lucy’s book yet — although now I have to. I was intrigued by Ann’s guilt over pulling away from Lucy toward the end of her life…it’s a terrible burden to feel responsibility for another adult’s choices, despite recognizing that one is powerless to change their tragic flaws. The story of Lucy’s life could be juxtaposed to a novel by Emile Zola . . . was her endless need for attention an unavoidable consequence of her environment and not solely related to the disfiguring cancer? Perhaps nothing could have changed her slide into drug addiction — not less friends, not more friends, not even a quartet of slavishly devoted lovers.
Ann Patchett’s book is exquisitely written and deeply heartfelt, whether or not you agree with how she conducted herself as a friend. And, obviously, it has struck a nerve, good or bad, with many of us.
I just finished Truth and Beauty and was glad to find this site. I was amazed that Lucy survived as long as she did. She couldn’t EAT for Godsake. Anyone who thinks poor nutrition doesn’t have an affect on mood is wrong. I was not surprised that she made the transition from perscription painkillers to heroin. How could anyone deal with that kind of pain? Yes, she asked for the final surgeries, but she wanted TEETH. Pretty basic. I have a new appreciation for my teeth. I am taken aback at how harsh some of you are toward Lucy. She accomplished a lot and suffered greatly. May she rest in peace.
I just read Patchett’s book and read most of the postings at this site. I wish to point out a couple of things that seemed to have missed by others. First, in the beginning of their relationship, Lucy was a great deal of fun. Remember their dancing every night. As a writer I also know the value of having someone you can trust to bounce ideas around and to share drafts.
Ann was also fascinated by Lucy because she was so different and exotic. Yes, I saw the co-dependency pattern that began to emerge and got worse in the final years of the relationship, as well as Lucy’s self-obsession and narcissism. But Lucy wasn’t just having operations to make herself attractive. Remember how Patchett talks about Lucy’s lack of teeth, problems with eating, etc. The woman probably never had a well-balanced meal in 30 years, and clearly imbibed alcohol as fuel. As Lucy’s life deteriorated, it’s clear that Patchett WAS having problems dealing with it, and was not engaging in unconditional co-dependency. She never could have created the books she did, maintained the relationships she had, if she’d let Lucy control her entire life. In fact, Lucy may have been a muse, in a bizarre sort of way.
It’s a shame Lucy had to die. Luckily, though, none of us will have to look at her face again.
I also looked for information about Lucy Grealy after reading first Truth and Beauty, and then AOAF. First, Veronica comment was nothing but cruel, and seems completely uneducated. I am astonished she chose to put herself on the same level of Lucy’s Jr. High tormenters and then publish it.
I have read comments on Ann and Lucy, berating and lauding them both. I came away with two thoughts after reading T & B. First, others have called Ann an enabler, which may be true, but when one is completely vested in a friendship, it has no conditons. You are what that friend needs at different times of their life because you love them. Rarely do people stop themselves to analyze thier motives.
Second, Ann Patchett is a writer. Writers most often work through emotions by WRITING. I can imagine the process of writing T & B was very carthartic for her, and probably did allow her to excorcise certain demons. I think it unfair to say she wrote this book strictly for money. For others to read the story of her friendship, they would have to buy the book. Friends, and friendships, are not perfect in the best of circumstances. I think she did a beautiful job with this book.
I’m reading Patchett’s Patron Saint of Liars, really a beautifully written book. I have not read Truth and Beauty, however, all these postings must reflect the book itself- – -the many fascinations of the human condition. I believe that human behavior is much too complex to ever find a specific reason to explain it.
Also, Cynthia, whoever you are, lighten up a bit.
I just finished reading Bel Canto. I truly feel like Ann Patchett wrote a story she did not know how to end so she shot all the characters. What a disappointment. She did not even identify the shooter. I will not read another one of her books. She cheats the reader.
I just finished Truth & Beauty by Ann Patchett at this moment and began browsing the internet for more information on the work of Lucy. I read Bel Canto months ago and absolutely loved it. I am somewhat shocked by some of the comments on this site…so critical and judgemental. Is it not just a memoir of real people experiencing lifes terrible joys and disappointments? I thought Ann Patchett wrote it with love, honesty and truth. I felt it was a real story that spoke from her heart and people seem so quick to tear that apart. We should be thankful that she shared it with such frankness. It is after all friendships and family that make our life worthwhile.
It is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. I am glad that Ann Patchett chose to share her and Lucy’s story with the world.
Peace.
Just checking in again. Funny how fascinating Lucy’s story is. I do not undertand the comment-“we do not have to look at her face again.” I can see that living through her torment was brutal, but the face that I have seen from Lucy’s appearancers was not all that bad. I mean every day on the subway there is a woman that looks worse. Granted- no teeth and not being able to eat properly has to be an exhausting situation. But I cannot help but wonder if she would have had real difficulties with a normal face.
rr
In all likelihood, Grealy probably would have had real difficulties even with a normal face. She was mentally ill; her cancer and disfigurement probably exacerbated her mental condition, but did not cause it. I don’t know what her exact diagnosis would have been, but judging from her behavior she had violent mood swings, depression, narcissicm, an inability to reason, and engaged in compulsive promiscuity. Was she bi-polar? Schizophrenic? Did she have a personality disorder, or several personality disorders? No one will know. But this IS for certain: she was a seriously mentally-ill woman, and she would NOT help herself. It was her destiny to end up as she did; a suicide.
Lucy’s depression and loneliness. I could relate to having all the friends/success in the world and still feeling lonely and empty inside.
Depression sucks and it distorts one’s view of life, thus making it difficult to believe and accept the help one so desperately needs.
No to be taken lightly. Ever!
DHS
Having just finished Truth and Beauty I too decided to do some research.
Lucy was perhaps gifted, witty, self absorbed and frustrating. Internally chaotic and fragile.
When I read that she had found heroin I knew she would struggle to ‘lose’ it again, for people like Lucy heroin can be most intergrating, and can make them feel more “whole” than they been able to previously.
The irony of Truth and Beauty is that is is neither, rather a story focussing on an individuals subjective experience. it can be no more or less.
It was however a great reading experience.
Most books – fiction or non-fiction – are forgotten the moment you’ve read them. These characters will stay in my head for a long time. I couldn’t put the book down. A sad but brilliantly told story – I dreaded the pages building up to Lucy’s death.
Read this stunning article about Lucy…
‘Remembering Lucy Grealy’ By Flaminia Ocampo
http://www.verbsap.com/2005dec/ocampo.html
Flaminia Ocampo’s article underscores an inconsistency I have wondered about as I read T & B. Ocampo points out that the students in the class Lucy taught did not like Lucy. In T & B Patchett tells how Lucy was a target for cruelty and ridicule during her school years, and at times in later life i.e. “the dog girl.” Yet Patchett persists in giving glowing descriptions of Lucy’s charisma and popularity, her multitude of friends, her packed schedule of social activitiies. To me it doesn’t make sense that someone could morph from the scorned and reviled pariah into a popular and charismatic drawing-card. Patchett also writes about Lucy’s colossal neediness, demands and narcissism. The point I am making is, I suspect that the portrait Patchett provides of a personable, lovable woman is Patchett’s own skewed perception of Lucy. Patchett sees Lucy through the rose-colored filter of her love for Lucy, and apparently presumes the rest of the world could only be charmed by the unique, dynamic Lucy Grealy. The problem I have with this is that self-absorbed narcissists do not typically draw others to them. In fact, others are repelled. Lucy’s incessant and profound loneliness is tell-tale about just how much others sought her company. How else does one make sense of Lucy’s constant loneliness? As mentioned by an earlier poster, I was surprised to see in Lucy’s photos a reasonably attractive woman. Lack of jaw notwithstanding, there appeared to be nothing revolting about Lucy’s physical appearance that would have discouraged suitors for the entirety of her life from high school on. Many less-than-perfect people find love in spite of their imperfection – the blind, deaf, amputees, paraplegics, dwarfs. I therefore concluded that Lucy’s personality was the stumbling block that prevented her from achieving the love and intimacy she so craved. Adding to the picture her poor relationships with her own family members, I think it is safe to say that Lucy was not a person skilled in people interactions or likely to have many people clamoring for her company.
I picked up T & B because it is about a friendship between two women. Healthy or unhealthy, codependent or not, homoerotic or not, the point is that they shared a relationship that was special and fulfilling to both of them. Each of them was a defining figure in the other’s life. It is about unconditional love. Everyone should be so fortunate to experience the ups and downs, joys and sorrows, love and pain of a once-in-a-lifetime friendship. The kind that books are written about.
I don’t think it is that strange that the drunk students in Scotland or the New School MFAs disliked Lucy and the New York literati loved and appreciated her (which they actually did). It makes sense that there were more kindred spirits amongst her poet/artist friends than amongst her 1st year MFAs or late-night college inebriates — don’t you think?
I just finished reading Truth and Beauty. I read it because I enjoyed all of Ann Patchett’s novels and I wanted something else of hers to read. I had never heard of Lucy Grealy, in spite of being a voracious reader, before reading T&B. I googled “Lucy Grealy” because I was curious to know more about her–and to see if there was a photo of her on the internet. (I wanted to see for myself if Lucy was as hideous as she felt herself to be, and I was surprised to find a realtively attractive woman in the available photographs).
Then I came across this blog….
It’s amazing to me the range and depth of feeling and opinion that T&B has engendered.(Some really vitriolic and scathing judgement, also, Cynthia. I wonder why you care so much, keep writing so often, if you hate the book so much??? Hmmm…?)
T&B is one friend’s memory of a friendship. Of course it is one sided–how could it not be?
Was Ann co-dependent? Is co-dependecy just another word for unconditional love? Maybe, maybe not. But who cares? That’s not really the point, is it? Ann certainly didn’t let her friendship with Lucy hold her back in any way. Novels, fellowships, awards…. Kind of makes Cynthia’s opinion of Ann’s patholgical “co-dependency” a bit of a joke. (Yeah, we should all be so “flawed!”) But I digress….
The point is: T&B is one person’s memory of events, etc., in the lives of TWO people. The lives of TWO people filtered through the memory, ideology and opinion of ONE person. What does that turn it into? A STORY!
It’s a STORY, people. And, in my opinion, a damn good one. The strength and longevity of this blog alone should bear that opinion out.
The fact that so many people have gotten so worked up over a STORY is the reason why I usually avoid non-fiction of this type. It may be labelled “non-fiction”, but it isn’t. Unless you have a tape-recorder and a movie camera in use at all times to capture EXACTLY what is done and said, then the majority of events must be fleshed out from memory. So, unless you have 100% photographic recall, what you are going to “remember” will not be entirely accurate. You will have to fill in the inevitable blanks with something you make up. Ergo, fiction.
Truth and Beauty. The truth is, Ann Patchett wrote a very compelling and readable story about a real person who was tortured because she felt she had no beauty, and would, therefore, never find love. The book is a tragedy, really, in the truest meaning of the word: A tale describing the downfall of a great man or woman. And incredibly inronic in that she, Lucy, was dearly and unconditionally loved by Ann. But since Ann was not a man, that love didn’t count. (Where are the feminists and whay aren’t they having a field day with that?!?!?!?)
It is, of course, a matter of opinion whether or not Lucy Grealy was great. And, then again, it depends upon your definition of greatness. She certainly had an out-sized personality, a presence in inverse proportion to her diminuative stature. Was her writing great–or were we drawn into the drama by the very nature of her story? Who can resist a tale of a sickness, suffering and abuse? Was it her prose, or our prurience that made Lucy Grealy a celebrity?
And, once again, does it really matter? All that matters is the story and its telling: This is what happens to people, even the mighty fall, we are our own undoing, etc., etc., ad infinitum.
Don’t judge Lucy or Ann. Read the story as a cautionary tale about what can happen to a person when she/he looks for love and approval from without instead of from within.
Suzanne dear, I never said I “hated” the book. I found it quite interesting, as well as disturbing and infuriating. As for my opinion of Ann Patchett’s co-dependency being a “joke”…not hardly. Here is one definition of co-dependence: “a preoccupation and extreme dependence (emotionally, socially, and sometimes physically) on a person or object. Eventually this dependence on another person becomes a pathological condition that affects the co-dependent in all other relationships”. Ann Patchett’s fixation on Lucy Grealy began in college, where Patchett views Grealy as a “celebrity” and is not offended when Grealy rudely rebuffs her shy attempts to initiate a conversation with her. When Patchett is accepted into the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, Grealy has the gall to write Patchett and ask her to find a place for her to live. They end up renting a place together; when Patchett arrives Grealy (who Patchett doesn’t even really know at all) leaps onto her like a maniac, wrapping her legs around Patchett and “crying into my hair”. Any reasonable person would have thought: “this woman is insane. Let me outta here!” But not Patchett; she is “thrilled” to be “chosen” by Lucy. Things progress from there, co-dependency wise. Patchett is Grealy’s slave, doing all the cooking and cleaning. When Patchett gets a boyfriend Grealy demands to know, who do you love best, me or him? After lamely trying to say that you can love different people in different ways Patchett concedes that she loves Lucy best. Patchett asks Grealy for permisssion, PERMISSION, to have relationships with other people. As the years pass, Patchett feeds Grealy, bathes her, nurses her, bullies doctors into giving her more pain medication than she needs, pays her bills, tells her she can live with her as long as she wants, bill-free and worry-free. She finally develops a lasting relationship with a man, in no small part because Grealy has given her approval, and tries half-heartedly to distance herself a bit from the limpet-like Grealy. Of course inevitably Grealy dies of a drug overdose; Patchett had previously threatened to “leave” her over the drug use, but later realizes she could NEVER “give up” Lucy. After Grealy’s death Patchett laments about the second half of her life “the half that would be lived without Lucy”. Ann Patchett was ADDICTED to Lucy Grealy, a woman who used her, frequently treated her like crap, and appeared to harbor half-concealed contempt for her devoted, loyal, unceasingly giving friend. Ann Patchett is co-dependence personified. As for Lucy Grealy, there are been many, many disfigured human beings who have gone on to happy, productive lives and good relationships and good marriages. It all comes down to choices. And Lucy Grealy’s choices were sex, druga and surgery. She thought that one or all of those things would somehow transform her life and make her happy and beautiful. She was obviously deeply mentally ill. Maybe if she had gotton the proper treatment for that things would have been different for her.
A lesson in the book. Looks matter. Is there an adult over 30 who would deny that people are not honest with children. How you look is just overwhelmingly important.
Lucy, disagreeable or not had talent. I think that there is a movie – not a blockbuster, a chick flick – that could be interesting to everyone, in her book. Or in Ann’s book.
Cynthia, it all depends on how you look at it. You can choose to look at Ann Patchett as self-serving and addicted or you can choose to see her as one who was capable of loving another person selflessly and unconditionally. I choose the latter.
Truth and Beauty was recommended to me by the literacy coach at my school. I was also inspired to read the book because this year it caused a controversy at Clemson University. Freshman students were required to read this book over the summer and a politician protested over the amount of sex, course language, and drug use. I had to laugh because my daughter attends the same university which is not only known for its academic requirements, but for its partying as well. And these are college students we are talking about! Watch a little MTV!
However, I digress! I finished the book yesterday and found it to be painful and moving. While I respect everyone’s comments and opinions no one has the right to judge another human being for the life they lead; as long as it does not harm others. The only person that Lucy harmed was herself. Ann Patchett and Lucy’s other friends allowed themselves to be caught up in the situation.
Remember he who is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. John 8:7
Ah, but Lucy Grealy DID harm others. She harmed Ann Patchett repeatedly, by being a selfish, inconsiderate, slovenly roommate, by leeching off her financially. When Patchett moves in with a boyfriend, Grealy for some reason is given a key to the place. She takes at least one man to Patchett and the boyfriend’s home and has sex with the man in THEIR bed. And then tells Patchett about it. It would seem to me that that was a deliberate attempt on Grealy’s part to hurt the feelings of her dear “pet”. What else could it be? Grealy caused a lot of pain for her family by her behavior, in particular her awful comments about her mother. I’m sure Grealy’s creditors have no liking for her, since she defaulted on loans and refused to pay her taxes. And then there is the matter of Grealy driving while drunk or stoned. On one occasion she plowed into a tree; she could have just as easily plowed into another car or a person, and seriously injured or even killed someone. Lucy Grealy certainly harmed herself, but she was also no slouch when came to harming others. And that is one of the reasons why a lot of people disliked. her.
Cynthia, you seem to be obsessed with the details of the book. Ann Patchett did not write the book for you to judge her. These are characters in a story. Sure, they’re based on a real relationship, but unless you actually lived it, you can’t be the judge. Ann doesn’t claim to be perfect, or to have done the right thing. In fact, the last line of her book states that she’d made a mistake. She is simply telling their story as she sees it. Not to be judged, not to judge Lucy. Keep in mind that she was likely grieving as she wrote it, and sure, some anger over how she felt must have come into the book. But the point is, if you’re going to judge anything, judge the writing. Not the people. Regardless of how you felt about Lucy, she was a real person who lived a life, and none of us are more perfect than she. This book is a great lesson for anyone. I agree that Lucy caused a lot of pain in her own life and in others, but we shouldn’t be the judge of her life. I am glad that Ann published this book because not only does it teach anyone a lot about what it means to be a writer, or a friend, whatever your definition of friendship, Lucy had a lot of talent, and this book shows us some more of her writing. Ann is not perfect either. She admits in the book that she couldn’t deal with the things other than the physical–she only knew how to help with the concrete things, such as money and her physical health. So, she helped in the best way she knew how. We shouldn’t judge her for not knowing how to help Lucy.
Whatever you feel about the people in this story, that isn’t the point. Besides, judging their relationship now won’t do anyone any good. Lucy is dead, and ranting about things Lucy or Ann should have done won’t change anything. Maybe, though, this book can help save another’s life.
I did not cry, instead, I have allowed this story to change my life. The Lucy and Ann in me fight for balance.
I loved the dreams Ann had after Lucy died, and felt that Lucy was simply letting her know she was fine, that in death, the ultimate journey, she had discovered how to love herself.
I just finished Truth and Beauty – it was wonderful. I’m a local book reviewer and had never heard of Lucy. I know Lucy’s family is suffering with grief, but it is obvious that they are totally off base. They ought to be thanking Ann and Lucy’s other friends for being there for her – and, for making her legacy live on. Suellen (Lucy’s sister) is upset about a painting – how petty. Maybe if you had helped take care of her at the end, you’d have that painging. Lucy’s friends obviously supported her both emotionally and physically (shelter, money, etc). And, I think it was aweful to pit Lucy’s work against Ann’s work. Everything in the book (with regard to Ann’s career) checks out to be factual, so how can she say that? Ann is an amazing author. I think the family is sufferring from extreme regret. If I had treated my sister they way they did (when she was alive) – I’d have regret, too. Lucy was a writer seeking national recognition – Ann has added to that dream and made Lucy live in the minds of millions.
It seems to me having read the comments posted that most of you are close minded regarding Cynthia. I do not agree with her in many things she says, but I think most of you miss the point that Lucy would have! Lucy did not want your sympathy or pity; she knew knew she was flawed and faced it unflinchingly. Part of the reason she was so profoundly depressed was that she felt she had no right to be saddened by her own plight in light of other world attrocities and suffering.
Also those of you who call Cynthia judgmental then retaliate with passive aggressive mud slinging of your own, thinly disguised as suggestions or “feeling sorry for her,” admit it for what is: name calling. Cynthia engages in it too, but is at least honest about it. I’d rather hear her call others the relatively harmless epithet “dipsy doodles” than listen to immature posters taking potshots at her psyche because she has a divergent opinion.
I obviously cannot speak with certainty on the opinions of someone I’ll never know. Instead I only base it on what Lucy has said herself and what Ann Patchett confirms. Lucy wanted to be loved for the sake of her talents; which truthfully makes her more unique than her diagnoses physical or mental. Her suffering certainly enhanced her writing, and ultimately sabotaged it as well. She shows awareness of her shortcomings even when lacking the insight to bring about the necessary changes. There is an enormous sense of responsibility in her writing. She even blames herself for the perceived failing of needing to be loved. Cynthia thinks she’s pathetic? I bet Lucy did too. (I am not calling her pathetic myself; personally I’d use the word “tragic”.) But those who hold up her immense misfortunes as an excuse for the poor choices she often made do her an injustice as she held herself more accountable. She wanted our attention and literary respect, not woeful lamentation and pity.
Cynthia,
You are remarkably absorbed with a woman you claim to abhor. You go on and on, pressing the point that Grealy was a “loser.” Cleary Lucy Grealy’s life has struck a nerve. You overcame your own hurdles, did not succomb to addiction and early death like Lucy, good for you. Rather than heaping your self-righteous condemnation on a dead poet, you should take your excess baggage to a therapist’s room.
I don’t see how this book “can help save another’s life”, unless it is used as a cautionary tale on how NOT to deal with someone who is a drug addict in total denial. Providing a drug addict with shelter and paying her bills is not going to help. Giving her a “mountain of gifts” and buying her massages and manicures and taking her to the movies and fixing her favorite foods is not going to help. Nursing and coddling her after her unnecessary surgeries is not going to help. If Lucy Grealy’s “friends” had ALL said to her “if you don’t get off drugs and stay off them, you will never see or hear from me again and I will have nothing to do with you” that MIGHT have been the incentive that would have forced her to do something to help herself. A psychiatrist of hers did just that. If her friends had had the backbone to do that it might have helped to save her life. Might have. Although I tend to think Grealy was a hopeless case; she probably would have ended up dying young no matter what. Well, we’ll never really know what would have happened had her friends rejected her in an attempt to force her to get her act together. But it would have been worth a shot.
As for YOU, dear Jessica, I have this to say. This is a blog, and I am expressing my opinion, my very STRONG opinion, on a book about a very sick relationship between two emotionally-disturbed women. If strong opinions are too much for you to take, I suggest you take YOUR neurosis to a reputable mental health profesional.
Dear Cynthia is myopic in her reaction to Lucy and her life because of her own troubled past. “Addiction” and “proper methods of intervention” are just a fraction of the whole. Lucy was a creative force as a human being and writer. People didn’t just flock to her because she was disfigured or “mentally ill.” She was a compelling, unique, gifted woman caught in extraordinary circumstances. To reduce her to a pathetic, failed case of addiction is to miss the point entirely.
Here is another shorter interview with Lucy.
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1285/is_n2_v26/ai_18082720
Let’s talk about the docs a bit.Sure Lucy make take responsibilty for choosing the surgeries she chose as an adult. But these docs were absolutely complicit in “enabling” a drug addict in the making. They probably didn’t review Lucy’s entire history closely enough to realize Lucy was addicted to surgery. Or they truly believed their surgery would be the one that worked. Or they were greedy and happy to take her money, or in some cases, the taxpayers’ money. Or a combo or all these things and more. I don’t know enough about Lucy’s disfigurement to know how many of these surgeries were to make her more attractive and how many were to help her function, i.e. have bone upon which to sink new teeth. Perhaps but for earlier more cosmetic surgeries that last ones for teeth would have been more successful. Who knows? But we all should be appalled that there are doctors willing to do 38 surgeries on a woman who needed consistent, ongoing, effective mental health counselling more than anything. I hope the docs who treated her know of the eventual outcome and are doing some deep introspection about their part in her final decline.
I find this discussion so interesting because (apart from a few intelligent postings) it seems not to recognize the difference between life and art. But surely Autobiography of a Face is all about this fundamental distinction. The celebrated scene in which the young Lucy goes out for Halloween plays on the difference between the two. The many women she encounters undergoing cosmetic surgery are aware of it. Ann Patchett comments on it in her Afterword to the revised edition. Why is this so hard to grasp? Any autobiography or memoir makes a selection from the details that an already imperfect memory has to offer. It is, as Patchett says, like pulling the fragments of gold out of a torrential river. Most of us don’t have the patience.
These disputes about whether Lucy’s relationship with Ann was “codependent” are strikingly silly. Why not ask whether Miss Havisham was mean to Estella, or whether Popeye treated Olive Oyl with appropriate courtesy? I don’t mean to say that either AOAF or T&B is purely fictional, but both are admittedly perspectives on the truth. Most of the posts on this site seem to assume that we are in a court of law.
Learn how to read, for heaven’s sake.
Cynthia. If you’re trying to be a troll, you’re certainly succeeding. If, however, you want your comments to be taken seriously, tone down the vitriol, hmm? Otherwise I’ll keep reading your hysterical nonsense and laughing. I like both options, personally, so, you know. Your choice.
Moving on, I don’t particularly care whether either book was factual or fictional. And I’m certainly not going to judge the value of two lives I’ve never lived. My only feeling, really, is that the Grealy book seemed like a more coherent story, for better or worse, whereas the Patchett book just seemed like one endless depressing anecdote. Maybe that’s how it was supposed to sound. Heartbreaking, definitely, and well-crafted, but hard to get through, in my opinion.
Threatened by my strong opinions, huh Andy? Well, I don’t really care, that’s your problem. And let me remind you where you are, dear: this is a blog, a forum for discussion. As for “hysterical nonsense”…well my arguments are not hysterical OR nonsense. They DO offend a lot of people though, especially people who view the Grealy/Patchett relationship as unconditional love, a wonderful friendship, a beautiful, positive, enchanting story. Are you one of the loony Lucy-groupies?
You “don’t care whether either book was factual or fictional”. That’s pretty bizarre. Both books were memoirs; both were supposed to be “factual”, or as much as a story told from one perspective can be. Suellen Grealy claims that her sister’s book presents a skewed portrayal of her family, although she does describe her father well enough. Patchett’s book is completely unobjective; she is too blinded by ardor to put Grealy in the proper perspective. I’d like to see someone do a book that gives the reader an honest portrayal of the wreck that was Lucy Grealy. Maybe her sister will do something like that at some point in time.
If you don’t care about truthfulness in memoirs I suggest you read “A Million Little Pieces” by James Frey. You’d probably enjoy it.
Cynthia,
Let’s get to the bottom of this:
Why are you so committed to proving that Lucy Grealy was a wreck of a human being?
Is your face deformed? Are you “objectively” ugly? Were you taunted as a girl? Or are you still taunted? (You obviously relish in, and invite, adversity… you’ve invented yourself as the character on this blog we all love to hate). You’ve alluded to the hardship you’ve overcome in your life and what a superior woman you are to the “pathetic” Lucy Grealy. Drug addiction was your bag? For someone who’s so worked up about Ann Patchett’s lack of “objectivity” in her memoir, your point of view is dripping with subjectivity. So, out with it. Tell us your story. Many of us would love to know the motor behind your vitriol.
I’m flattered at your interest in me, Eloise, but my life is private.
You don’t speak for the masses, sweetheart. Your declaration that I am the person on this blog that “we all love to hate” and your demand that I “tell us your story” is presumtuous, indeed. I don’t think anybody much cares about my life story. And whether of not I’m the person “we all love to hate”, I don’t give a damn what you or anyone else here thinks of me and I certainly don’t have to explain anything to you or any of the other goofy Lucy-groupies.
I don’t have to prove Lucy Grealy was a human train wreck. Ann Patchett’s book did that.
What it comes down to is this. Patchett and Grealy’s relationship was sick and dysfunctional to an extreme. The facts of the matter prove that. But there are people who don’t see it that way; they see a relationship where one person is used and abused by another person and loves it as true friendship and unconditional love. And that my dear, is a total crock.
I’ll say it again; if my views offend you, that’s your problem. Deal with it.
Cynthia’s first post was Nov.2004! It is April 2007! Good grief. All of you get away from your screens and find yourself a life.
I have read both of these memoirs several times, I suppose because being someone with a ‘borderline’ personality, I really relate. I think that, indeed, Lucy had a borderline personality, and that Anne somehow must have taken great pleasure in playing the enabling/all-embracing role that she did. I do not judge them, but at the same time, I don’t think their relationship was altogeather wholesome. However, how many of us can claim to have perfect relationships with all the people in our lives? If we were to all write memoirs about our most significant relationships and be unflichingly honest, I think there would be a lot of oddness or even uglieness to expose. Being human is hard, and if you have been abused, disfigured or are mentally ill, it gets even harder. The ways in which we sustain ourselves inspite of our shortcommings is often through acts of compensation, extraordinary love, and sometimes strange soulful relationships that look nothing like what is ‘normal’.
I greatly appreciate people who write about and expose their psycological/relational histories, it is important for all of us to see what is really going on inside of one another, weather it is ugly, beautiful or just human.
I’m wondering if anyone on this blog knows anything about the man, B___ ,who Lucy had an affair with in Iowa (in T&B)? Is it Robert Hamry, who donated Lucy’s papers to the University of Iowa in 2004? I wonder if that happened before or after T & B was published?
I enjoyed reading all these blogs. What an insightful and diverse compilation of comments!
I don’t think Ann had any right to disclose personal information about her “best friend” Talking about how she left half eaten bowls of mashed up spaghetti around, her abortion, her many lovers, her selfishness. A real “best friend” excepts these things and doesn’t write a tell all about them. If she was such a nag why did she put up with her. I don’t think Lucy was begging for her friendship, it sound like she had many other friends This book pretty such said this.
Look at me, wasn’t I a great friend to this insufferable woman.
I agree with Jill. Truth and Beauty is a tribute to Ann Patchett, not Lucy Grealy.
To see Lucy Grealy speak for herself, go to google video and type in Lucy Grealy. You will find her on Charlie Rose (1994) at the 38 minute and 20 second mark.
In response to Stephanie, the book reviewer, I think Lucy’s family did the best they could in doing what they thought was best for her. Lucy was not the only member of that family with mental issues. They obviously had a lot on their plates. Also, dealing with an over-the-top, codependent personality is unbearably trying. At some point, you have to stop getting sucked in, stop trying to right every wrong and let the person survive on their own if they can. I feel for Lucy’s family. They aren’t authors, they don’t have the same capability as Ann to put their thoughts and feelings onto an open market for all to read and judge. The point has been made that both Lucy and Ann are offering perspectives–not necessarily true accounts of life. I don’t think that Lucy’s family deserves harsh criticism, as we have no idea what they are like, what they went through or how things really were for them–we’ve only read second hand accounts.
I am still reading Ann Patchett’s truth and Beauty and had to come online to read what I could. I will come back when finished but at this point I feel the critisisn of both Grealy and Patchett are unwarranted. Try on their shoes, be where they were and who they were and just get on with your own lives. Why are people so obsessed with judging?
Just stumbled in here, as did many of you, and I have really enjoyed all the comments you posted these last few years. I just picked up the T&B book yesterday at a yard sale, read it today and became fascinated enough to want to learn more. I am glad to realize that I am not alone in the thoughts stirred up by this book. These web places are so good for that! Anyway, I am a therapist, a close woman friend, a sister of a dead heroin addict (whom I loved, even with the complications), someone who has experienced depression … the book just touched me in so many places, as most good books do. The only comment that I want to add to this longstanding discussion, because I don’t believe it has been mentioned, is that Lucy’s most probable borderline personality disorder has been highlighted by the very behavior her symptoms (as reported by the author) have triggered here in this on-line group … the splitting, the triangulating, the idealization, the confusion, the outrage, the pity, the need to rescue, etc, etc. It’s amazing. Anyone who has ever worked, or lived, with these very tortured human beings knows all too well this transference /countertransference that is expereienced among caregivers (or in our case, “carers”). It’s actually a good indication of her likely diagnosis and, most importantly, of the feelings Lucy had for herself and her experience of life … as a way to better understand her. On an entirely different and lighter note, while admitting to a hopeless obsession with the American Idol tv show, I have to add that Cynthia, the fellow blogger here, reminds me of the infamous judge, Simon Cowell. People cringe when he speaks, and many downright hate him, but much … not all, but much …of what he says is absolutely right-on. He just isn’t as tactful as he would need to be to avoid disturbing peoples’ sensibilities. It sells a lot of television, though … and it keeps people attached to blogs that could otherwise end up rather boring if such folks kept quiet.
Lucy was very happy and pleased when, as an adult, she became a US citizen.
Ann has every right to write whatever she wants – and Lucy Mags is loving every minute of it & relishing your attention.
Lucy’s family pain is there own, & i wuold hope that the attention paid LMG would give solace.
Love to all.
This blog and all our comments just prove how ready we all are to believe anything on paper, and labelled as memoir, must be truth.
Writers give us their perspective, not the gospel. AP and LG “chose” what they thought important. Both enhanced or left out what they wanted. Both, I’m sure, transformed characters and personalities to suit their purposes. As readers we have to understand that.
It’s sad we keep judging people just because we “read” something…
I suppose that I first saw this site well over a year ago. Just saw it on my “favorites” and checked. Still going on. I wondered what was the core tht makes Lucy this interesting. Was it her book or Ann Patchett’s book. I guess that it was her biography because she entered a very difficult area – appearance- where most people will not. Her extreme isolation, her extremely difficult situation, and what is undeniably her talent for putting it down makes it a great book. This book will survive.
I wonder, Could she have written fiction? Did she lose her nerve with fiction? Why was she thinking of going to med school at the end?
richard
Richa
Regardless of what Lucy’s sister feels to be a theft of grief, the fact remains that Lucy lived a life full of friends and a surrogate family, which included Ann.
Yes, both books are opinion. Opinions based on experiences. The memoirs share the same subject: Lucy.
Good or bad, right or wrong, what makes both of these memoirs books that will continued to be read a long time down the road is the mere fact that the other book exists.
The two comments directly above make me very sad. Autobiography of a Face was a hugely successful book before Lucy Grealy died and before there was any public association with Ann Patchett whatsoever. That’s because the writing itself is extraordinary (as well as the story). So Lucy’s book did not need the help of ‘Truth and Beauty’ to make it ‘interesting.’
Ann Patchett has a whole body of fiction that people can read and get lost in without even thinking of ‘Truth and Beauty.’ But for Lucy, the one really well-known book she wrote will now forever be entangled with Patchett’s book. How would Lucy feel about that? I don’t know but I can guess based on a quote from Ann Patchett herself on page 165 of Truth and Beauty (hard copy):
“Whenever I asked Lucy if she wanted to exchange pages with me, she wasn’t interested and I didn’t push the point. I knew that by writing a novel, she felt like she was straying onto my turf. For Lucy it was very important that our professional careers remain separate.”
I have suffered from distorted perception about my looks for years….. after almost 2 yrs of therapy and medication I can say that I am healed, eventhough i understand that i’ve also learned to live with it and not pay attention to it.
I know how it feels to suffer cuz you think your not normal.
Lucy had a very different problem. She was for real disfigured so not even therapy was going to make her believe she was not.
A lot of courage is necessary to live with peace of mind after her illness.
I read the book and felt a lot of compassion and understanding for her.
I wish she could’ve felt better about herself though.
Im nobody to judge her or anybody else…
I just hope she didnt suffer that much, and the mostly the cruelty of children when she was little…. what really damaged her emotional side… from the beginning…
Lucy rest in peace.
And thank you for writin that book for all those who suffer from any selfimage disorder.
We are learning from it, that we dont have to feel down or waste our lives for supercicialities.
I defenitely recommend this book to every one.
It’s not just that passing judgement on either Ann Patchett or Lucy Grealy is unwarranted. It’s completely beside the point. Ann Patchett’s book is about friendship and love, a relationship that was so deep and compelling that it defined the lives of those involved in it. All those who have responded on this site with such bitterness and vitriol and ugly sniping at not only the authors, but at other posters who say things they disagree with — well, they should only know such love, love that is its own reason for being.
Knowing that just such judgment exists in this world demonstrates Ann Patchett’s extraordinary bravery in laying bare her poignant, beautiful and intense friendship with Lucy Grealy, and her honesty and straightforwardness about just how exhausting and difficult the relationship could be. Surely she knew that she was leaving herself open to those who need to label everyone.
All that we readers need to do is enjoy the richness and beauty and depth of love that humans are capable of feeling for each other, and use this story to remind ourselves to live as fully and consciously as we can inside our own real and human connections.
I, too, have just finished reading Truth and Beautty and found it to be haunting. I agree with some of the comments that the book is more of a catharsis and tribute to mourning than seems obvious at first. For anyone who has had toxic or otherwise friendships that leave them questioning the relationship and the role of each person, this book delves deep into the intricacies of that type of relationship. I believe it is Ann Patchett’s way to assess the friendship, what she got out of it, and what she put into it. Of course she mourned her friend who possessed many qualities and annoyances that she did not possess and that may have been part of the original attraction. The same may be true for Lucy for what she got out of the relationship with Ann – hence the endearments, ‘my pet’, etc. For all its complexity, I believe it’s a book Ann HAD to write in order to deal with Lucy’s death and assess (and perhaps justify) her role in the friendship.
Maybe she had to write it. She didn’t have to publish it.
Again, here is a quote from Ann Patchett HERSELF on page 165 of TRUTH AND BEAUTY (hard copy):
“Whenever I asked Lucy if she wanted to exchange pages with me, she
wasn’t interested and I didn’t push the point. I knew that by writing a
novel, she felt like she was straying onto my turf.
FOR LUCY IT WAS VERY IMPORTANT THAT OUR PROFESSIONAL CAREERS REMAIN SEPARATE.”
So Lucy felt bad even WRITING A NOVEL because she felt it would be blurring some boundary with Ann. Yet here Patchett has infiltrated Lucy’s story completely. Now anyone who reads Autobiography automatically runs off to read the infinitely inferior Truth and Beauty.
Does Ann truly believe this is what Lucy would have wanted??? Does ANYONE believe that this is what Lucy would have wanted?
Hi, folks! I haven’t checked back here for a long time. I hope all of you are having a wonderful holiday season.
In response to the above: I think Lucy Grealy would be mortified and enraged at “Truth and Beauty”. It revealed ALL of her flaws, both physical and mental. She would especially be angered by Patchett’s using the story of their friendship to further her own career. No, anger is too mild a word; she would be ready to explode with indignation and horror. I think Patchett knew this when she started the project. So why did she create this testimony to her dear friend’s tortured existence? I think the answer is that Patchett always had an underlying hostility towards Grealy, and “Truth and Beauty” is the result of that. I think her friendship with Grealy made her feel superior in some way, despite her practically being Grealy’s slave. I think, deep inside, she would say to herself: “her life is more exciting and interesting than mine, but at least I’m not a penniless, toothless, desperate, lonely, drug-addicted woman with most of her jaw missing”. Yes, I think there was a lot of hostility there and it went both ways. From the start Grealy treated Patchett with distain, and even after they became each other’s “pet” Grealy still treated Patchett with veiled and sometimes not so veiled contempt. She would do things deliberately to offend or embarrass Patchett and Patchett would take it. Grealy probably viewed Patchett as an easy mark, a chump. Despite the fact that these two were constantly reiterating their “love” for each other, in a very substantial way they hated each other.
I agree with Julie (October 2, 2007). Having just finished Truth & Beauty, I found myself caring deeply about both of these women. I am awed both by Lucy’s spirit and Ann’s patience. They were a gift to one another, and I think Patchett’s book portrays this. I am also saddened by the dark judgmental tone many contributors to the site have taken. Why does someone always have to be wrong or be the bad one? Ann depicts two different and vulnerable human beings brought together by a shared love/interest–writing and the art of writing. The longer I live the more I realize how flawed we all are and how very necessary it is that we love each other in spite of–pehaps because of–our very human failures.
After finishing “Face” last week and half way through “Truth & Beauty”, I found myself obsessed with Lucy Grealy and Lucy and Ann’s friendship.
I’m trying to find anything and everything I can about them, including an interview with Lucy on Charlie Rose in the 90’s. I whole-heartedly agree with Kate, the books are what they are, not right or wrong. Take from the them what you will. No judgement is necessary. No hypotheses are necessary.
I just finished listening to Truth and Beauty on CD read by Ann Patchett and I thought it was a mesmerizing story! It brought me to the internet and this website. Your comments and opinions were also interesting. I found myself disagreeing heartily with Cynthia’s perceptions of Ann and Lucy’s friendship! I thought it was an honest look at a friendship over the years that involved successes, failures, and addiction. I do not think Ann portrayed herself as the savior and I do not think she portrayed Lucy as hopelessly selfish. It is the truth of true friendship: sometimes it’s not fair or equal or even pretty, but you love your friends in spite of that. I definitely saw the truth and beauty in their relationship and it touched me deeply.
I have learned that everyone deserves love and support. I have learned to admire those who ask for–and even sometimes demand–what they need. Isn’t it up to each of us as individuals to decide whether or not we can provide what another is asking for?
These women carved their own agreement of friendship, shaped their own lives, shared their own stories. Motive, cause, truth–these are all conjecture for us whether we are casual readers or family of origin.
I, for one, am grateful their stories have been shared. The questions they raise about my own relationships, my own needs and private desires for beauty, ultimate friendship, escape, fame, “sainthood” are ultimately valuable as I walk through my own version of this world.
how interesting that this discussion has been more-or-less continually active for 3 1/2 years now-slowed some, to be sure, but still alive. and it’s gratifying to note the general high level of intelligence and erudition here. like most commenters, i found this site after becoming intrigued by l.g. after reading a of a f. she certainly is one compelling woman to maintain this much personal juju after several years post-mortem. unlike most of the other posters, i am male, and unlike ALL the other posters(i think) i have a physical impairment/disability-from childhood, like lucy-comparable in psychosocial consequences to hers. also, she and i are almost exact contemporaries. like her, i had early interaction with medicos, like her i was taunted and mocked by my peers, like her i had occasional exhilerating glimpses of ‘normality’, like her i felt like a social and sexual pariah, and like her i blossomed(less so than her) in college…’a of a f’ was also interesting to me because i recognize certain behaviors in myself that lucy displayed. like her, i can’t keep people’s names straight or sometimes even remember them at all. this is due to what i call quasi-sociopathology(i’m not a true sociopath, since i am capable of empathy). it comes from being teased for having a real defect, but being unable to help it; other people come to seem not quite ‘real’. you know any intimacy is only likely to go just so far, so why bother? and also like l.g., i engaged in ‘testing’ behaviour, boundary-pushing with my friendships, passive-aggression, etc…being disabled or disfigured is a REAL problem in this life. it’s not necessarily going to be substantially helped by any amount of ‘counseling'(that great secular panacea). i’d also caution against hauling out the old boilerplate condemnation of Our Capitalist, Patriarchical Society And It’s Toxic Emphasis On Physical Beauty. that’s an evasion, for the most part; it keeps one from examining one’s OWN physicality in light of beauty and ugliness.
still, i found myself longing for a good, clear, close up photo of lucy. because in the one’s online, she doesn’t look bad at all-certainly not someone who warrants the instant, strong reactions from others she describes in her book. i wonder if she didnt exagerate some? also, having loads and loads of friends and lovers(especially) doesn’t quite jibe with someone really seriously facially disfigured. think about it-how many such people do you see in a year? not bloody many. they’re around, but they STAY HOME, because being out in public is too awful.
anyway…lucy grealy remains a woman of mystery.
everything i read about and for lucy is beautiful, i wish i could have known her.
I have a disability and in my junior year of college, I became friends with someone who appears to be very similar to Lucy. It was the most engrossing friendship that I have ever had both in a negative and positive way. There were times when I was so annoyed by the depiction of Lucy and her behaviors that I had to stop because it reminded me too much of my friend. I can sympathize with Patchett because it is almost like you need to purge yourself of the things that happened to you when you are in a friendship such as the one that she describes. However, after now reading Lucy’s sister’s feelings on the book, I do question the circumstances behind T & B’s publication. I wonder if Grealy’s family really was kept in the dark. If so, that seems dishonest and doesn’t honor the part of the relationship that Pachett likes. I feel as though the book is both a love letter to a friend and also rails against Grealey who she could be at times. I’m not sure Patchett ever decided what she wanted the book to be a love letter or a chance to express her rage. While friendships are complicated in this way, and it appears that certainly this one was. . .I would have to agree with the above author who agreed with Pachett’s need to write it but not publish it. This is not to say that I didn’t enjoy it and find it haunting.
Thank you for all the amazing and insightful comments. Please let me know if there is any way to contact Ann Patchett and to thank her for writing this book? It is a complex book and a mystery in many ways the way Lucy acts. Certainly she can be considered spoiled and very self centered. But why am I deeply, deeply moved and cried while reading and after reading the book? For one reason, it shows the compassion one person has for another. Like a Greek tragedy, the web Lucy catches herself up in seems to come from herself. How could she or most people deal with an unbearable amount of pain except through deadening that pain. Lucy is a hero struggling with a huge, ugly monkey on her back. It is amazing that she lived as long as she did. I saw a fireworks display last night and the thought that went through my head is this is what true love must be like. Lucy must have felt that same fireworks too, as Ann said, about Lucy’s feeling of living so close to death.
I, like Lucy, feel very ugly but unlike her have no friends, really live almost totally alone yet would never hurt or kill myself because I only have the outward pain to deal with. I have read too much about heroin and how deadly it is. But I am not a gifted poet. Deeply moved by this book and had to put my feelings down somewhere.
I can’t believe you are still getting comments on this thread… then again, yes I can, since I am just now sitting down to read Ann Patchett’s book. (A day late and a dollar short, that’s me!)
Some of the harsh, moralistic judgments and intolerance exhibited in this thread are quite jarring, but it gives us a good idea of what Lucy had to deal with in her life. She could not simply live her life as an ordinary human being, but instead became a SYMBOL for other people’s psychological/personal projections (including Patchett’s). What a heavy burden this must have been.
Thanks for providing this forum for discussing the book in detail.
I am amazed with the length and breadth of this site. It is fascinating to read comments from those who are objective about their response to Lucy and Anne’s “story” and those to whom the account of Lucy’s and Anne’s behavior/relationship apparently stokes the fires of some personal injustice or sense of being robbed. I will join those whose hearts went out to them. I found TRUTH AND BEAUTY to be a lovingly rendered account of a compelling and consuming connection between two women whose art was writing (and how fortunate that it was) and the shattering end. As a writer who was lent the book by a friend and colleague – I know the special empathy that writers share as friends – the conflict between pride at another’s success and meddlesome jealousy. Perhaps there is something else – the knowledge of how lonely the art of writing is, making friendships with other writers deeply valuable. As a woman, having another woman friend who is a writer is especially treasured. Often, as I read this book, I saw the same need for a “mirror” in a trusted fellow writer whose art we admire and respect. The love comes not so much from being there during crisis but from acknowledging our own art, helping us discover who we are.
Ditto. Soemone finally says it out loud! Find a way (for Pete’s Sake) to find happiness. The rest of us did. It is not us, the reader who is arrogant, un-understanding, and self-absorbed, it is the writer.
Ann Patchett should not have permanently injected herself into Lucy Grealy’s literary turf. Lucy Grealy’s book was an amazing gift to the world AS IS. Ann Patchett should have joined a grief support group or something rather than write this totally invasive book that spills all of Lucy Grealy’s most private pain and humiliating moments to the world.
Lucy shared enough with us already, and did it with tremendous poetry, self-restraint, expression and grace. Her book is a million times more unique and interesting than Patchett’s.
I have no criticism of their friendship but Ann Patchett published this book for HERSELF and nobody else. Not Lucy, not “Truth” not the world at large. And certainly w/no regard to Lucy’s family – can you imagine a mother reading something so painful about her daughter?
Autobiography of a Face is a work of poetic literature, Truth and Beauty is like a long and sloppy let-it-all-hang-out psychological journal entry. Of course, it’s Lucy who’s left exposed not Ann.
What’s more Ann has had an easy life herself. A sweet childhood, success in every area of her life – it’s just totally unfair and Lucy would have HATED it I’m sure but of course she has no say in the matter.
Except of course that Ann Patchett doesn’t embarrass HERSELF, she embarrasses her friend.
If you want to see Lucy SPEAK FOR HERSELF, she can be found on Charlie Rose in 1994. Scroll to the 38minute 20 second mark.
She comes across much more like the graceful voice of her OWN book rather than the trainwreck portrayed by Patchett:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=lucy+grealy&emb=0#
thanks so much, bb for posting that link. it answers some questions i had-yes, l.g. was signifigantly facially disfigured…she wasn’t really exagerating. but-speaking as a hetero male here-she was sexy, nonetheless. plus, she had a good body.
I just finished reading Autobiography of a Face for for the first time this weekend. I never knew that Lucy had died because I didn’t read all the quotes on the back of the book. The book was actually a course requirement for a class my daughter took in college. I thought the writing was beautiful and easy and full of detail that I could encompass. Looking at this thread (thanks to my daughter) I never realized how many different ways we could construe this story telling into a way of feeling so many challenging, contrived, ignorant, beautiful, angry, compelling emotions . I don’t like Cynthia but I think she raises some great questions. I have not yet read T&B, will I be disappointed? I for one really wanted Lucy to say she wrote the truth. (I know she cant) I don’t think she did. She wrote a great book.It entertained us and it ultimately consumed us..
Hi Mertz, I recommend that you do not read Truth and Beauty. I had the great fortune of discovering Autobiography of a Face years before Lucy actually did die. It is an extraodinary book, and you can open it up and read parts of it again and again. It never gets old. It only deepens and gets more and more interesting. It is full of grace and dignity and yes, truth!
The fact that Grealy had to fill in some blanks does not take away from the ‘truth’, in my opinion. If I had to paint a picture of my childhood bedroom from memory, I would do my best but obviously get reference pictures of toys and books and whatever from that time period (good old 70’s). I’d have to ‘make up’ a few details in order to recreate what it was actually like. And I think that’s what Lucy did with her book. Her writing is lucid and deeply honest.
In Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett seems to babble away every personal detail that comes to her head. To me that’s not ‘truth’, it’s National Enquirer.
Ever since reading Truth and Beauty, I’ve had a really hard time going back to re-read Autobiography of a Face. Truth and Beauty RUINS it. It is full of information, that is nobody’s business, and it is voyeuristic to read.
Following this thread I thought I was the polar opposite of Cynthia, but in the end I actually agree with her on how wrong it was of Patchett to publish Truth and Beauty. I also share Cynthia’s concern for Lucy’s mother & the effect this book would have on their family.
Blah blah blah. Most important I once again suggest that anyone interested listen to Lucy Grealy speak for HERSELF on Charlie Rose in 1994, at the 38 minute and 20 second mark:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=lucy+grealy&emb=0#