Truth & Beauty: A Friendship

by Ann Patchett
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship
book data
4,240 ratings, 3.91 average rating, 786 reviews (more data...)
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published
April 1st 2005 (first published 2004) by Harper Perennial

binding
Paperback, 257 pages

isbn
0060572159    (isbn13: 9780060572150)

description
Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writer's Workshop, began a friendship that would be as ...more




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Barbara
Read in February, 2008
recommends it for: no one
I didn't care for it, for several reasons. First of all, I didn't think much of the quality of the writing--certainly nothing like Lucy Grealy's in her own memoir. Second, I found both women's behavior in the friendship really strange. Ann seems completely blank in the relationship, never asserting any real personality, and completely enabling Lucy's neediness and selfishness. Lucy just sounded like a black hole, sucking up every bit of attention, affection, needing more and more extravagant ...more
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Khaya
11/06/07
Khaya rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 000719093X)

bookshelves: memoirs
Wow -- what a fascinating experience, to read "Truth and Beauty" after "Autobiography of a Face" and then to follow up with Suellen Grealy's angry article. I actually thought "Truth and Beauty" was the better book of the two, although perhaps it's not fair to say that because much of my fascination with "Truth and Beauty," at least initially, stemmed from having read "Autobiography of a Face" and the unique, stimulating opportunity to read one p...more
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Joyce
08/30/07
Joyce rated it: 1 of 5 stars (review of isbn 0060755997)

recommends it for: people with addict friends
The scene of Lucy sitting on Ann's knee, while at a restaurant ... Lucy forcing Ann to tell her "You love me the most"... while Ann feeds her ? rusks of bread ... almost made me throw-up!
I suppose I was disappointed with Ann Patchet's non-fictional character. The book was thought provoking, as you can see that Ann loves Lucy ... as a child.
But you cannot help but want to scream at Ann that she is not helping by enabling her personality disordered friend. Lucy comes by the d...more
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  2 comments

Colleen
01/25/08
Colleen rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2008
I picked up this book because I read "Bel Canto" and loved it, and loved Ann Patchett's writing style. I also think that, in general, friendship does not get enough respect in our society. There's a lot of attention payed to family and lovers, but not much to friends.
This is the story of a friendship between the author and a woman she went to college with. They both end up at the University of Iowa's Writer's Workshop at the same time, and a beautiful, life-long friendship ensue...more
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Charlotte
10/28/07
Charlotte rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Read in February, 2007
I learned how not to treat friends.

I couldn't believe that Ann didn't end her friendship with Lucy after so many irritating incidents on Lucy's part. I would have backed out of sharing an apartment with Lucy if she had jumped up on me when I first arrived at the apartment.

When Lucy demanded that Ann tell her that she (Ann) loved her most, why did Ann cater to her wishes?

The author did not explain to my satisfaction why Lucy continued t...more
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Carla
08/20/07
Carla rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in January, 2007
recommends it for: girlfriends
My best friend Audrey gave me this book at the same time she gave me the book "Autobiography of a face". What a great present. I would read them in the order they are written (autobiography) first. The first book is just an interesting story which is well written. I really liked this book b/c it was mostly about the power of friendship. We all know the power of a good relationship with a significant other but rarely is the power of a female friendship written about. I can relate ...more
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Kate
03/29/09
Kate rated it: 5 of 5 stars (review of isbn 000719093X)

bookshelves: memoirsbios
Read in March, 2009
I can't help but contrast this with Anne Lamott's "Operating Instructions", although totally different premises, but both are primarily novelists who venture into non-fiction to chronicle a relationship. Patchett's clean and crisp writing makes Lamott's simile affection all the more vulgar. And unlike Lamott, Patchett manages to be seem modest despite her success, and largely un-martyred by tragic circumstances. I didn't even mind the patches of one of my very least favorite topics, w...more
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Kellie
09/24/08
Kellie rated it: 4 of 5 stars

This was an incredible book about friendship. Lucy Grealy had cancer when she was young, which resulted in several surgeries to remove parts of her jaw. These surgeries left her with a deformed face. Ann met Lucy in her early 20’s. She immediately befriended Lucy and “felt chosen by Lucy and was thrilled.” Lucy had a lot of friends. But it never seemed to be enough. Ann beautifully describes her friend in these words, …”Lucy’s loneliness was breathtaking in its enormity. If s...more
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Kim
09/03/07
Kim rated it: 3 of 5 stars

Read in September, 2007
recommends it for: Ann Patchett fans
I have just read two books about female friendship back to back--one was the annotated letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lorena Hickok and the other was this one, novelist Ann Patchett's memoir of her all-encompassing and troubled friendship with poet Lucy Grealy, who is insecure, needy, and self-destructive, but also incredibly gifted. It is no spoiler to say that Lucy dies at the end, which is given away on the dust jacket and dedication page.

Both books were similar in that one par...more
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Kate
04/05/08
Kate rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in May, 2008
The friendship of Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett was extraordinary and excruciating. I’ve had some remarkable friendships in my life, but this book forced serious introspection. I identify with Ann, and wonder: could I love someone as broken or needy as Lucy? Would I have the courage to stand up to a self-destructing friend? Do I have the fortitude to stick by a friend through gruesome surgeries/recoveries? Or maybe I am more of Lucy--searching for Perfect Love, drawing others in for my ow...more
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Kang
03/24/08
Kang rated it: 1 of 5 stars

Couldn't get into this book because there was no real character development. The book is not so much a narrative as a portrait, a portrait both of Lucy Grealy and of the friendship between Ann Patchett and Grealy. But Lucy at the end of the book is pretty much Lucy at the beginning of the book--with more success and a drug addiction. And Ann doesn't really change either, though she arguably matures and is more comfortable in her own skin by the end. The friendship, to be sure, undergoes some...more
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Kate
04/13/09
Kate rated it: 4 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2009
I'm adding this book to my shelf of books about writing. As much as it's about friendship and devotion, it's also about writing. I read the whole thing in a day. (Granted, I didn't get anything else done ... ) This is the story of two women who meet in college and become lifelong friends, until one of them dies. It's powerful and moving and awful and beautiful and I don't know what else.
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  1 comment

Erin
03/10/08
Erin rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: nonfiction
Read in March, 2008
recommended to Erin by: Wendy?
recommends it for: memoir enthusiasts
I had a tough time deciding how many stars to give this book. On the one hand, after a false start, I read Truth and Beauty very quickly - so it must have been of some kind of interest to me. But when I try to remember what was compelling about it, I have to it admit that it's not much, really. Perhaps the larger-than-life personality of tiny Lucy Grealy? Surely it wasn't the dull reportage of events; the book travels in a fairly linear fashion from first meeting until Grealy's death. Patch...more
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Jhoanna
10/20/07
Jhoanna rated it: 5 of 5 stars

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

"What the story doesn't tell you is that the ant relented at the eleventh hour and took in the grasshopper when the weather was hard, fed him on his tenderest store of grass all w...more
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Laurel
11/15/07
Laurel rated it: 5 of 5 stars

bookshelves: collection
Has a copy to sell/swap
recommends it for: women
Even though I had never read any of Patchett's novels, I read this when it first came out and was incredibly moved by it...the story of Ann and Lucy's friendship simply resonated with me. I think it would resonate with anyone who has had that one friendship that leaves a lasting imprint on one's life. The title says it all...truth and beauty. No sugar coating of character...no rose colored glasses...people are messy and sometimes we love them all the more for it. I would also recommend readi...more
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Lindsey
I read the first page at the end of one of my breaks and was instantly hooked. This book definitely sucked me in and was well written. It held my attention even during the parts where I was like WTF?! Which there were quite a few parts.

Things were great for me when they were bonding and in grad school. Things didn't make as much sense to me when they were becoming famous authors. Like with the book Comfort I started to wonder if maybe this was a subject I couldn't wrap my brain arou...more
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Kerfe
12/27/08
Kerfe rated it: 2 of 5 stars

Read in December, 2008
Addicts are not very likable. At best I found Lucy Grealy tiresome. That was at the beginning of Patchett's memoir about their friendship. By the end my feelings for Lucy had turned into active dislike.

I don't think this was the author's intent. When Lucy dies, she says: "I had thought I could let her go. But now I know I was simply not cut out for life without her. I am living that life now and would not choose it." But she never made me see why this should be. Why...more
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Amanda
06/08/09
Amanda rated it: 4 of 5 stars

bookshelves: read-in-2009
Read in June, 2009
I have a little crush on Ann Patchett and it was so refreshing to read her first real stab at non-fiction, not least of all because it involves her own life. Well-written, and an intensely intimate look at a friendship which some other reviewers have derided as nonsensical, one-sided, abusive, etc. In many ways, it was all of the above. People like Ann and Lucy (though never quite to Lucy's extreme) have wandered in and out of my life as friends and I have loved and hated them for their selfish ...more
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Anna
05/29/09
Anna rated it: 5 of 5 stars

Read in April, 2009
28. Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, by Ann Patchett. This was one of the darkest books I've read all year. A memoir about Patchett's twenty-year friendship with writer Lucy Grealy, who eventually died of something like an accidental heroin overdose (the telling and probably the fact of it is unclear), the book starts out with the exuberance of two girls fresh out of college, and concludes with one of the girls spiraling into depression and addiction and her eventual and inevitable death.

...more
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Nancy
05/23/09
Nancy rated it: 3 of 5 stars

bookshelves: non-fiction
Read in May, 2009
I liked this book as I have like Patchett's other books, especially "Patron Saint of Liars" and "Run." This is non-fiction, though about Patchett's friendship with Lucy Grealy, another writer, who I had not heard about. I will likely read Grealy's book or poetry at some time, though. Lucy, who has lots of friends, is a demanding, jealous, insecure friend. She seems to be constantly seeking approval, for her writing, her "appeal", both sex appeal and with friends...more
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Truth and Beauty: A Friendship (Hardcover)
Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (Hardcover)
Truth and Beauty (Paperback)
Truth & Beauty CD: A Friendship (Audio CD)
Truth and Beauty a Friendship (Hardcover)







quotes from this book

"Writing is a job, a talent, but it's also the place to go in your head. It is the imaginary friend you drink your tea with in the afternoon." More quotes...


groups with this book

The Rory Gilmore Book Club
First Novels & Memoirs
University of Iowa Readers
WFWR Bookclub
Bound By Brookline






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