Goodreads | Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (Paperback) by Ann Patchett

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Grealy's book	6	23	07/30/2008 10:22AM

Barbara rated it:

(review of isbn 000719093X)

03/01/08

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: no one

I didn't care for it. One reason is I didn't find the writing to be very good--certainly nothing like Lucy Grealy's in her own memoir. Another reason is 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 slefishness. Lucy just sounded like a black hole, sucking up every bit of attention, affection, needing more and more extravagant declarations of lo...more

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Khaya rated it:

(review of isbn 000719093X)

11/07/07

bookshelves: goodmemoirs

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

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Joyce rated it:

(review of isbn 0060755997)

09/01/07

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 disorder ...more

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Charlotte rated it:

10/31/07

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 to have friends. Apparen...more

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Carla rated it:

10/03/07

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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Kellie rated it:

09/24/08

bookshelves: 2007-reads, bookclub-books, non-fiction

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

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Ginnie rated it:

05/28/08

bookshelves: memoirs, women

Truth & Beauty is a harrowing document, composed in a spare, forthright style very different from the elegant artifice of Patchett's novels. It can be no surprise that the memoir of a friendship that ends in the premature death of a gifted writer does not make for cheerful reading. And yet there is much in Truth & Beauty that is uplifting, a testament to the perennial idealism and optimism of the young.

The beauty of this book is in the details, and in the anecdotes so c...more

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Colleen rated it:

02/10/08

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 ensues. I...more

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Kim rated it:

09/22/07

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 party to th...more 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 party to the friendship went on to great heights of fame and accomplishment while the other achieved some success, but not enough to soothe her troubled soul. Inevitably, the career paths of the four women in the two books diverged, and not surprisingly their friendships did too.

I enjoyed Patchett's book more than the Roosevelt-Hickok book simply because there was more text, more narrative, than with some footnoted letters (fascinating though they were). I've never read any of Patchett's novels, but I've read some of her articles and she's a wonderful writer. You get many intimations of her talent in this book, but this book ultimately left me cold. On one hand, Patchett purports to love Lucy, calling her the "pettest of [her:] pets," yet to me this book (issued rather soon after Lucy's untimely death) smacked of exploitation. Ann reveals all of Lucy's faults and weaknesses in excruciatingly painful detail, and although I could sympathize with Ann's frustration, I felt betrayed on Lucy's behalf.

I can fully understand why Ann, as a writer, felt that writing would be the best way to work through her grief and make sense of her friendship with Lucy. Perhaps she felt she was honoring Lucy and giving her some of the fame that Lucy always craved. But part of me wishes Ann would have written this all down, stored it in a box, and kept it to herself. Or, at a minimum, disguised this story as a novel, which is Patchett's forte. I must admit that I thought about this book for days after I finished reading it, so it was obviously very effective in its way, but I also felt sad, very sad, that Lucy had to die and that her friend had to lay her soul so bare for the world to feast on. ...less

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Kate rated it:

05/11/08

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 rated it:

03/24/08

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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Erin rated it:

03/10/08

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 rated it:

10/30/07

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

"What the story doesn't tell you is that the ant relented at the eleventh hour and took in the grasshopper when the weather was hard, fed him on his tenderest store of grass all winter. ...more

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Laurel rated it:

11/15/07

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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Bonnie G rated it:

02/26/08

Read in February, 2008

I really liked the descriptions of the writing processes of these two fine minds. I wanted to like the friendship, but it was just too one-sided for me. I love my friends and would do a lot for them, but I am not sure I could have been Lucy's friend. She asked a lot and Ann always gave it. Did Ann get a true friend or someone who desperately needed her?

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Catherine rated it:

08/29/08

Read in April, 2008

Learned ins and outs of an Iowa-type path to writing fiction/poetry/nonfiction. Inspired by parts, repulsed by others (including my voyeuristic interest in the friendship and the jaw). Some nice moments.

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Alix rated it:

08/04/08

I'm a huge fan of Patchett's and in this memoir she continues to impress and captivate me. Here she explores her very troubling friendship with a very troubled woman.

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Jody rated it:

03/30/08

This one made me crave more by Ann Patchett. I'm a sucker for stories on friendships. This one is right up there with the best.

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Anna rated it:

11/28/07

Read in August, 2005

again, great book, esp. when read in conjunction with Autobiography of a Face.

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KMB added it

11/05/08

Read in October, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Read this book in 2005 and loved it then, a story about a friendship between two writers, Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy. I had previously read Patchett's Bel Canto but had never heard of Grealy. After reading Truth and Beauty, I wanted to read her Autobiography of a Face but never actually did. Well, I finally have (for book group), and then I read Truth and Beauty again, and it made both books that much more meaningful. In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy presents herself one way and that way ...more Read this book in 2005 and loved it then, a story about a friendship between two writers, Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy. I had previously read Patchett's Bel Canto but had never heard of Grealy. After reading Truth and Beauty, I wanted to read her Autobiography of a Face but never actually did. Well, I finally have (for book group), and then I read Truth and Beauty again, and it made both books that much more meaningful. In Autobiography of a Face, Lucy presents herself one way and that way is very noble and sympathetic. You want the best for her, as maybe you should any protagonist, but like a dating profile, it only showed the best parts of her. And there were a lot of wonderful parts. She clearly seemed to be a charismatic, talented person, someone who learned a lot from her suffering and tried very hard to have an identity and a life outside of her suffering. She shed light on the human condition through the lens of her personal condition. Ann Patchett's book tells about Lucy from her own perspective, knowing Lucy from a distance at Sarah Lawrence, and then as her housemate at Iowa, then as a close friend for the remaining years of Lucy's life. Lucy was a lot of fun while also being a burden the whole time, but a burden Ann was willing to shoulder because she felt such a deep kinship. At one point in the book, she describes feeling like Lucy was the only one that spoke her native tongue, and she didn't realize how hard she'd been struggling in a foreign language until she talked to Lucy and finally, she was speaking English again. But despite their closeness (to the point of Lucy spending Thanksgiving and Christmas with Ann's family, Ann going to visit her in Ireland, Ann taking care of her after a few of her surgeries, Ann paying off thousands of dollars of her debt and re-outfitting her kitchen at one point), despite all this, Lucy was oftentimes a shitty friend. She blew her off at times, she took advantage, she demanded attention in ways that ruined certain things for Ann. At one point Lucy even said that Lucy allowed Ann to feel like a saint (when Ann had come up to New York to take care of her following a surgery). Ann said "That's a terrible thing to say," and Lucy may have been excused because she was on pain meds. Ann doesn't roll over and put up with Lucy's crap indefinitely, or at least not enough for us to lose total respect for her, but she does put up with a little to much. Lucy suffered a lot, but I don't think that excused her for being an asshole. I still found Lucy fascinating after re-reading Truth and Beauty, but I wasn't as in love with her as a I when I finished Autobiography, having forgotten most of Truth and Beauty from my first reading.

Also read an article written by Suellen Grealy, Lucy's older sister, who compared Ann's writing of T and B to someone draping the corpse of a Muslim in bacon. She felt that violated by Ann's book. She did acknowledge what a good friend Ann was to Lucy, and how much she supported her sister in so many ways. I was willing to respect everything she had to say in that article--especially defending her mother--until Suellen compared Lucy and Ann as writers and said that Ann was not as talented. She could dislike what Ann did, but as soon as she insulted her as a writer, I felt she just wanted to hurt Ann. And maybe that was the goal of her article. She certainly felt that Ann had hurt her by writing the book. But where I weigh in on this is that I don't think it was wrong for Ann to write that book. Someone inevitably suffers from the writing of a memoir, but if it's a good one, as this one is, many more people benefit from reading the story. This is not to diminish the Grealy family's suffering; they have certainly suffered much more than their share considering the early deaths and the illnesses, mental and physical, that have plagued them. But as Anne LaMott once said, if people didn't want you to write about them, they should have behaved better. I'm not saying Suellen behaved badly--she helped Lucy out in a way that made it into both memoirs. And the family was disrespected (?)perhaps more by omission. It would have been nice to know where they were all that time, why they weren't more involved with Lucy, or if they were, what that looked like. It would have been especially useful to know that the mother had such a breakdown that she was hardly functional, and as of the writing of Suellen's article, had not even been told that Lucy had died. Suellen wrote her article; she could write a book. I'm sure she has a book's worth to write....less

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