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Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

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This memoir is about the friendship between two woman writers, the novelist Ann Patchett and the poet/memoirist Lucy Grealy. I randomly picked this up from my neighborhood cafe book exchange and loved it. I immediately vowed to find Patchett's novels, which is not always a response I have when I read a memoir I like, as I have not bothered to pick up novels by, say, Anthony Bourdain or Augusten Burroughs. Perhaps the difference is that in the latter two cases, the personality of the author and the milieu is half the charm, whereas the virtues of Patchett's book, which lie not just in the prose (which is excellent) but in the depiction of relationships and a character portrait of someone other than the author, would seem to translate more easily to a novel. So I was pleased to discover that I already had Patchett's The Magician's Apprentice, which I have no recollection of buying.

I had earlier read Grealy's memoir, Autobiography of a Face, which is about her diagnosis of jaw cancer at the age of nine, her horrifying and lengthy treatment with chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery that removed much of her jaw, and of her experience growing up with a disfigured face. Though it was quite poetically written and the chemotherapy descriptions in particular were almost unreadably vivid, I had hoped for more of a sense of the author as a person, or more discussion of her experiences as an adult, or something-- it read to me as if large sections were missing or opaque.

When Patchett and Grealy meet in college, Grealy is famous on campus, for her talent, her charisma, and her tragic and dramatic life story-- much of her jaw is missing, she has undergone repeated unsuccessful surgeries to repair her face, and she suffers numerous health and living problems because she can't chew or swallow properly. Patchett is a bit of a nobody. But they end up becoming roommates, and bond instantly in the way that people do when they suddenly meet someone they can talk to about everything they always thought no one else could understand, and with whom the conversation flows. Besides that, they have chemistry. Though there are erotic elements in their relationship, at least in my view, what they mainly have is a friendship that's as lasting and passionate as a lifelong love-affair. In a sense, it is a lifelong love affair.

Oddly, reading the book convinced me of three things: that Patchett really did love Lucy and wrote the book out of love and grief after Lucy's death, that the book is honest to the best of Patchett's ability, and that though I have a lot of sympathy for Lucy Grealy, I don't actually find her likable. She comes across as needy, self-centered, a drama queen, and a bit of spoiled brat who never grows up. Granted, she had a lot to bear and reasons she was the way she was, but still. Patchett does her best to get across Lucy's personal charisma, but it's tough to fully portray a quality that's often solely in a person's aura and not in their words or deeds. Patchett herself is more in the background, but sees herself as the plodding ant to Lucy's charmingly feckless grasshopper.

But the relationship between the two of them comes across beautifully. Lucy loves to be taken care of, and Ann Patchett loves taking care; it's co-dependent, but it's also real love. This is a great character portrait, and a brilliant portrayal of a relationship that on one level makes no sense and on other levels seems inevitable and natural.

I was so curious about the background of the book that I looked it up, and found the swirl of intense and mixed feelings that so frequently surround memoirs: Lucy Grealy's sister is furious with Ann Patchett for writing a book that tells all about Lucy's less-than-stellar qualities, for priveleging her own grief above the family's, and for exposing the family to unwanted fame; readers here on Amazon note that Lucy was a bitch who brought everything on herself, or else accuse Patchett of not coming clean about the clearly lesbian nature of the relationship, of cashing in on a dead friend's memory for money, of being a doormat, of allowing Lucy to die (of a drug overdose) through her failure to apply tough love, of making Lucy look bad, of deliberately making Lucy look bad out of spite or jealousy, and of failing to give the proceeds to cancer research; and other readers defend the book at some length.

I wondered, when I read all that, if Ann Patchett hoped that readers would see Lucy as she saw Lucy-- infuriating, irresponsible, but impossibly charming-- and would love her too, and if she was saddened that a lot of them didn't. I wonder if she wishes she'd exposed more of her own flaws for balance, or softened Lucy's. Or if, when she was writing, she left nothing out because it never occurred to her any number of flaws could prevent anyone from loving Lucy.

The first time I met Lucy Grealy was at a party where she didn't know anyone. My friend, a man who at the time was dying of AIDs and who had taken care to read her work beforehand, insisted we approach her to welcome her, as she stood quite alone, looking overwhelmed and not at all at ease. He smiled warmly and extended his hand, telling her how much he admired her writing. She appraised him sourly, made some reference of the "of course you admire my writing, I write well," variety, and turned sharply away.

The second time I met Lucy Grealy, I was strolling through a quaint town with another friend, with whom she had gone to grad school. Upon seeing Grealy, he called out to her and crossed the street to congratulate her on her book. Seeing him approach, Grealy crossed the street at an angle to avoid him, and when they later ended up at the same award gathering for writers, she turned to him and said, "YOU? They gave YOU the same award they gave ME?"

What I found amazing, then, as I read Ann Patchett's book, was that Patchett describes literally hundreds of incidents far more negative than the ones outlined above, faithfully revealing Grealy as the rude, weak, petulant, narcisstic, petty, disturbed, and yes, utterly ugly person that she was (although I would argue that her inner ugliness was far, far greater than her facial deformity) and yet, somehow makes Grealy if not sympathetic then certainly compelling. I have to re-read the book to see exactly how Patchett does it. I do know that she acknowledges the hard truths of Grealy's rather deficient character with wisdom and charity. Who among us could walk that tightrope of love and honesty? I couldn't, and I don't think many others could, either. In Patchett's sure hands, Grealey emerges as a character we actually care about. I cannot think of a better testament to Patchett's writing ability than that.

What I remember most when news of Grealy's death made the rounds of my acquaintances is that no one-not people who'd gone to the Writer's Workshop with her and Patchett in Iowa, not colleagues of hers at Sarah Lawrence, not the people I still kept in touch with who remembered Grealy at the party mentioned above or those who knew her through the award they shared with her-mourned her at all. If anything, people tried-not altogether successfully-to suppress tight little smiles. "Oh well," is what people said, not at all regretfully. It was a first for me, the first time I'd personally known someone to pass with such indifference or worse, and as much as I did not like Grealy myself, I was haunted by it. How sad, I thought, for one's death mean so little to so many. Patchett's book is a surprising vindication for Grealy. If someone so difficult can be so loved and so lovingly portrayed, it should give hope to us all.

I am the Neighbor Nancy - who lived next door to Ann and Lucy in the "ugly green duplex." Yes, it was ugly, too!

I cherished this book. For those of you who felt Ann presented herself as saintly, you should look a little deeper. She was struggling herself and owns some mistakes rather openly (i.e., her marriage) but chooses not to dwell on them. That would have perhaps satisfied more of the reader's desire to learn more about Ann, but not kept on track with the goal of the book.

Many of us have, in the course of one special relationship (or many, for that matter) given more or cared more than others thought we should. It can be difficult to explain why we do it. What may seem unique, or out-of-place to some, is that Ann doesn't seem to need to demonize Lucy in the telling. That some of the readers don't understand that may be a product of Lucy herself just as much as Ann's style of storytelling.

Lucy and I created a song and dance routine of our own during rush week (just a short time after her arrival in Iowa City and moving in as my neighbor). Ann hadn't yet arrived. If you knew Lucy, you would understand how she could inspire an almost 30-year-old stranger/sociology grad student to sing and dance with abandon on the sidewalk.

Lucy made me laugh. Ann touched my heart with kindness and the generosity of her spirit. This book inspired me to revisit my memories of many special relationships over the years. Thank you, Ann!

I read this book for the first time because I loved Ann Patchett's Bel Canto. Not knowing what the book was about, the first reading was rather shocking. I have never read another biography like it. This second reading was for my book group and we also decided to read The Autobiography of a Face. They work like companion books, and Patchett was obviously picking up where Lucy left off. Her title is even lifted from the title of one of Grealy's chapters. She often echoes Lucy's sentiments about her many emotional and physical problems.

The two women were not friends during their simultaneous matriculation at Sarah Lawrence, but Ann knew who Lucy was. Theirs is a co-dependent relationship, with Ann as the strong one, the sensible one, the substitute parent, the big sister. All of her relationships, at least as persented in this book, play second fiddle to the all consuming one with Lucy. Lucy is a friend because she needs lots of friends. Her family is mostly absent through most of her serious operations and various depressions. Reading this novel made me wonder where they were. You get to know them a little better from Lucy's book. In both memoirs they are conspicuously absent a great deal of the time.

Lucy is a selfish, stubborn, artistic, free spirited, waif-like presence in the lives of those she knows. Ann is constantly amazed at how many people know and adore Lucy, and how all these relationships are maintained with the primary players rarely meeting, until they rally together to support Lucy in her more dire times of need. The reader may find Lucy's manipulative nature annoying; Ann finds it endearing. Lucy calls, Ann answers. Lucy beckons, Ann comes running. Lucy needs money, Ann supplies it.

The writing itself is admirable, and really very honest. I have never known anyone who suffered so greatly through so many operations, yet I am glad to not have known Lucy. Knowing other people who are ill, or have suffered makes me realize how something was sorely lacking in Lucy's life. She tried to be spiritual through her poetry, but her personal life lacked real relationships that were not based only on the concern for her own personal needs and not those of others. She wanted to be a celebrity and she wanted to be beautiful. She seemed to be elated when her book is finally published, but she never seems thankful for that in Truth and Beauty. She wants celebrity and fame and fortune, but at what cost to her and to others? Maybe that is why she finally turns to heroin, to fill the empty space in her life where she cannot have a real friendship without wishing it was "love."

Lucy's sister Suellen (not her twin Sarah) wrote a scathing article about Ann and this work in The UK paper The Guardian when the book was published, and interestingly enough, she admits that reading Lucy's book was very painful because she obviously knows how her sister can offer one point of view that doesn't necessarily reveal the whole truth (particularly about her family and their role in Lucy's life). She calls the book "careless." However, isn't that the priority and right of an artist? I wonder if they (the Grealy clan) were angry at Lucy when she wrote Autobiography of a Face, although Suellen claims to have been happy for her. She claims Ann "hitched her star to Lucy's" for her own personal gain. However, Ann was already well on her way to her own personal success long before writing this book. Bel Canto was more successful commercially than anything Lucy ever wrote. I think Ann needed to write this book, to come to some peace about her car wreck of a relationship with Lucy Grealy. She wrote about friendship, while Lucy wrote about her own personal pain and elusive search for beauty. Very sad. Worth reading.

I had read Lucy Grealy's own book, Autobiography of a Face, and it was interesting to read about Grealy's life from the perspective of her best frient, Patchett. I did find it weird that, while Patchett writes that her relationship with Grealy was the most important one in her life, I don't believe Grealy even mentioned Patchett in her own autobigraphy.

This book was beautifully written, and even though I know how it turns out [Grealy dies tragically, yet inevitably], I had to keep turning the pages to see how the story unfolded.

I have one correction to one of the reviews above: Lucy Grealy did not die of cancer. Her cancer never returned. She actually became a heroin addict, and it it believed that her mixing drugs and alcohol ultimately caused her death. Thus, I have to wonder if that review even read the book, or whether they got the "cancer" story from an inaccurate blurb on the Internet.

The topic of this book would lead one to believe it's a dull story of the friendship between two female writers; but for me, once I started reading, I could not put it down. I'd recommend it, especially as a nice change for people who usually read legal thrillers and romance novels.

I finished "Truth and Beauty" last night, and found myself glad that I had finished it. By the end, I was quite weary of Lucy Grealy's antics and neediness...did Patchett intend for Grealy to come off this way? The relationship between Patchett and Grealy seems one-sided as portrayed by the author, and left me wondering WHY Patchett felt such love for Grealy. Frankly, the book drained me.

Let me start by saying that this was a wonderful book ~ a stop-whatever-you're-doing-to-finish kind of book. It's a good story for sure, and it is made even better by the chance to see inside a friendship of two people that I have long admired. For me, Patchett has been admired for her tremendous writing abilities, and Grealy for her remarkable story, and... her tremendous writing ability. To be honest, my interest in the book was largely to do with my love for Grealy. Autobiography of a Face is one of my 10 most favorite books. The story is tough, but the details are tender. Moments from that book are ones that I carry with me through my life, and I cried when I read in the paper that Grealy was gone. Truth & Beauty is almost another kind of mourning.

One of the previous reviewers asked the question "Why would Patchett want to be friends with such a desperate character?" Very good question, not in the sense that Grealy was desperate, but that you definitely get that tone from the book. (My suggestion for that reviewer is, don't re-read Truth & Beauty, read Autobiography of a Face. YOU will want to have been friends with Grealy too!) Maybe Grealy was desperate in "real" life, but it just seemed too much from the book. (Or maybe I just loved her so much from Autobiography, that I don't want to hear that side? Better to have a vision of Grealy as the one who beat her demons?) Patchett, I know, tried hard to paint the whole picture of her friend, but the perceptions that she has of herself as the "giver" in the relationship come through loud and clear. Patchett references memories of Grealy commenting on Patchett's need for sainthood, and her innate tendency to always be "fine". In other words, I'm the one who is allowed to hurt, your only role is to serve as helper to my pain. This conflict was never resolved in the book, and maybe never resolved in real life. Hard for me to believe, given the huge capacity for emotion and feeling that Grealy had. She understood love and pain so well, I just can't believe that she was just so self-involved. And yes, why would you stay with a friend like that? I've dumped a few of that sort along the way...

In any case, I just loved the book. Loved the chance to find out what happened next in Grealy's life, loved the chance to find out about the crazy adventures she had as an adult, loved the chance to take a peek into the lives of two successful writers, and just loved the writing, all the way through. The story of the friendship though, is only half of the story.

This book simply blew me away. What I really loved about this book is that Patchett never once makes herself or Lucy out to be a hero -- she shows their weaknesses, and this reflects what a real, sustaining friendship is about. What's so compelling is how Ann greatly admired Lucy and loved her for reasons that couldn't fully be articulated (nor did they need to be). The writing is honest, clean, and straightforward as well as amazingly artistic. I'm honestly confused as to how anyone couldn't like this book, unless some readers don't want to face the truth: which is that all relationships are flawed but the way in which we choose to sustain them is how they survive.

I just read Autobiography of a Face, and I am so glad that Ann Patchett wrote this book. This book allows readers to know see another side of Lucy, at least as far as her friends knew her. One of the amazing things is that she could attract and keep so many close, loving friends, who would (and did) anything for her, yet she was never able to come up with a snappy comeback for rude men who called her ugly. Lucy wanted love from a man, yet was never satisfied or happy when she had it. If she had ever found her "great love" she would have destroyed it.

However, Ms. Patchett is as mysterious as Lucy about Lucy's family. Did Lucy never reveal anything to her? Lucy visits her mother once, her sister once, and once her twin sister and her husband come to visit to straighten out Lucy's financial mess (she didn't believe in paying her bills). I take it that they weren't close...but that leaves the reader to imagine why. Perhaps Lucy's constant demands for attention were too draining and they just couldn't handle it anymore.

Ms. Patchett clears up other things though, that Ms. Grealy left out of her book: the fact that she only had six upper teeth and no bottom ones(she talked about a doctor "accidentally" knocking out two of her front bottom teeth, but no further mention of them in her book), she could only eat certain foods, one of her eyes remained swollen off and on since a certain surgery, and that more than a hip or leg had been used for taking skin grafts (her back was also scarred up), plus she had a jagged point on one hip, that a very lazy doctor left, and no other doctor bothered to correct. Ms. Patchett also discusses Ms. Grealy's breast implants, as the radiation therapy had stunted her growth, but not apparently her fertility, as she later became pregnant and had an abortion. The whole abortion scenario could have been left out - I'm not sure why it wasn't, except to point out that the radiation had not harmed her ovaries? Or to let us know that Lucy was practical enough not to be upset about the abortion, but more excited about her book cover? Or to let us know that Ms. Patchett is not leaving anything out, no matter how personal?

This book is many things: a favor to readers, a tribute to a friend, a testimony of despair when that friend turns to drugs and becomes a typical, lying junkie. Perhaps a catharsis for Ann Patchett? If so, I wouldn't blame her.

Of the many, many times Ms. Patchett runs to Ms. Grealy's rescue, there was only one time I could remember that Lucy did something for her - allowed her to share the stage at a book-signing event. But it appears that Ms. Patchett never minded; she had gotten her own life in order, and Lucy had not. She found Lucy beautiful, and Lucy touched her life.

What merit I found in this book was due almost entirely to Patchett's narrative style. The author of two of the books I recommend most often to my friends and even to random strangers (Bel Canto and The Magician's Assistant) doesn't disappoint on that score in this -- what does one call it, a memoir?

But therein lies the main problem -- it's not a memoir, but it's told with too much almost-voyeuristic detail to be a respectable biography. I suppose that what it's supposed to be is a memoir of a friendship, as well as a memorial tribute of sorts, but it would have been better, in my opinion, as an essay, without spending what amounts to a large part of a book going into all the sordid personal details of Lucy's life and struggles. If someone writes about her own (appalling, really, in this case) promiscuity and drug use, you feel that she has the right to do so and that she's given you the right to read it -- whether one is interested in that sort of thing or not, she's putting the choice in the reader's hands. But no matter how close Patchett was to Lucy Grealy, the other half of the titular friendship, I felt like she was overstepping her rights, like she gave us Lucy's diary to read, without her consent. I enjoyed reading about the more innocent aspects of their shared life -- their inside jokes, for example, and their trials and successes as writers -- but it seemed like a page couldn't go by without a shot of the kind of details that I personally think would have been better kept between Ann and Lucy, especially since Lucy wasn't the one telling the story.

Chances are Lucy wouldn't have minded; obviously Patchett cared deeply about her and had reasons for writing about her life the way she did. Not being on the inside, so to speak, I obviously don't have anything to say about whether this story should have been written or not. But as a reader, a looker-on, I can say that I do wish I had left Lucy some respectful privacy. Had I known how deeply private this story was, I'd not have chosen to read it.