So much pain.

This is a childhood cancer memoir, though the wonderful afterword by Ann Patchett does not want you to think of it as a cancer memoir, but as a beautiful piece of writing. OK, but it's about a girl who went to chemo every single week for two years.

And SPOILER alert. I found myself thinking, "I can't believe they killed her father and both her horses!!!" I don't know why my mind phrased it that way, "they", as if it were a movie, rather than a true story. But yeah. It's not bad enough she has bone cancer and disfigurement.

I was planning to go on to Ann Patchett's TRUTH AND BEAUTY next, which is about the adult friendship between Patchett and Grealy, but I just felt like I'd had enough. So much pain.

This was a difficult book to read, but one which I found beautifully written despite the emotional and physical pain suffered by the author throughout her entire story. As a child of nine, she was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, which is a cancer that was treated with radical facial surgery. In order to prevent a recurrence of the life-threatening cancer, she had to undergo two and a half years of chemotherapy. Following that, she endured years and years of mostly disappointing plastic surgery on her jawline. She never felt that her face was sufficiently acceptable in the view of others although she was able to make friends after high school, attend college and direct her career toward writing.

This book made me want to be her friend. She always seemed so lonely and misunderstood because of her appearance. Her greatest solace during her younger years was with her companionship and work with horses. Both of the horses that she once owned met untimely ends. It all seemed so unfair.

In this book, the author mentioned a lot about flap procedures for plastic surgery. As a surgical oncology nurse back in the 1960s and 1970s, I remember patients with those flap procedures. They were horrible. Fortunately the author never had any of those that were proposed to her, but the surgical procedures which she did have (there were so many!) had terrribly disappointing results. It all seems unfair to me that a child had to suffer such a fate and continue to endure hardships as what this author faced year after year. She was a very brave person for telling her own story with such eloquence. ( )

Good moving story of a disfigured girl and how she coped with it. ( )

Lucy Grealy‘s Autobiography of a Face is on most short lists of best memoirs. Grealy became modestly famous from her story at the time it was published.

While I can’t say I didn’t enjoy reading it or sympathize with the girl who suffered so much, it didn’t affect me–reach me or touch me–the way it seems to affect most readers. I slightly pulled back from Grealy at times as I read the book. That’s kind of horrifying for me to think about because what happens to the young Grealy in the story is tragic: Grealy had cancer as a child and lost part of her jaw to the disease, growing up with a disfigured face.

As I try to look through the book to give you an idea of why I felt lukewarm, I can’t find any clues–although it seems to me that the world through her eyes didn’t seem like a world I know or a way that I connect with the world. Skimming the book, I realize I need to read it again. Maybe it was me. I want to be fair. I want to be accurate. I’ll toss it on the pile of unread books!

(When I subsequently read Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty I began to realize why I didn't "properly" respond to Grealy's book!) ( )

It took about 20 years and reading a couple of essays about Grealy in Ann Patchett's This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage to bring me to this memoir that was such a big seller back in the '90s when I worked at Borders Books & Music. It's quite good. I think that knowing too much about the book and its now-deceased author before reading it diminished its power for me, but it was still worth reading. ( )

How much pain, both physical and emotional, can one person endure? I am glad I read this book. After reading Ann Patchett’s memoir of their friendship, Truth and Beauty, I was interested to read about Lucy’s experience from her point of view. I’m ashamed to admit I was surprised at how lucid and how self-aware Lucy was (or maybe Ann Patchett would be even more ashamed). After suffering through two and a half years of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, young Lucy Grealy was left to experience the twin cruelties of being grateful to be alive, but with a face terribly disfigured from the removal of half of her jaw. She felt unlovable, yet drew people to her and demanded their affection. The book covers her childhood and early adult years and does not touch on the inevitable addiction to painkillers that Patchett’s memoir focuses on. ( )

Lucy Grealy was a typical nine-year-old girl until a random playground accident revealed a deeper problem: she had a rare, usually fatal form of childhood cancer called Ewing's sarcoma. After surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, she is left with only part of her jaw remaining. Reconstructive surgery is disappointing; plastic surgeons promise good results, but the artificial jaws they create out of skin and bone grafts are continually reabsorbed by her body. Grealy was left with with a deep sense of being ugly and unlovable, despite her blossoming intelligence and literary sensibility. This sense of being hopelessly disfigured was reinforced by the continual rounds of teasing she endured in junior high and even in high school.

Autobiography of a Face is Grealy's memoir in essays about her difficult coming of age in the 1970s and 1980s. She does come across as self-absorbed, but her insights into truth and beauty (to borrow the title of one of the book's strongest chapters, as well as the title of the book her friend Ann Patchett wrote about Grealy) make this book still well worth reading some seventeen years after her death. ( )

When still in childhood, Lucy is diagnosed with an invasive form of cancer that requires surgery to remove part of her jaw. Of course, before it comes to that, there are many many days in the hospital and countless tests. Being ill becomes not only her entire life, but a large part of her identity. No one fully explains to her what's happening and she has no sense that the forthcoming surgery will alter her appearance forever.

Following the surgery, she must endure over three years of chemotherapy treatments as well as radiation. Essentially, her entire life is consumed by her illness. What's worse than the pain and nausea, is the slowly dawning realization that her face is no longer socially acceptable. People openly stare at her and groups of young boys torment and verbally assault her on a daily basis.

Forced to confront the nature of her identity and the cruelty of mankind, she finds herself compelled to pursue surgery after surgery to correct her face sufficiently to recover anonymity. Even though she knows there is great injustice in her treatment, she still needs to live in this world that finds her unacceptable. Much meditation of beauty, ugliness, and society's pressure to conform follows.

This memoir is not for the faint of heart. However, in it's painful detail, I found myself encouraged by what a person can live through. The author calmly narrates what many of us have feared. It's extremely comforting to look directly into the heart of nightmare and death and not flinch away. Ms. Grealy has suffered in ways that most never will. She's been through astonishing pain and cruelty but has not died of it. Her story has power and beauty and much to teach everyone. ( )

Lucy Grealy was nine years old when she was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma, an aggressive bone cancer, in her right jaw. The surgery and chemo helped save her life but left her with disfiguring scars.

What is more important to your sense of self that to recognize yourself in the mirror? What if the face you saw in the mirror was one you could not bear to look at? A face that could not possibly reflect the you inside?

Grealy became a renowned poet, and her way with words shows here. She writes so eloquently and honestly about what she went through and how she felt growing up “ugly.” She writes about being the “special” kid in a family of four, getting more of her parents’ attention, skipping school, good friends, how she dealt with bullies, and how she became addicted to the pain killers she was prescribed following major surgery. Her life was not all tragic, however; she also remembers moments of joy and humorous escapades.

The memoir was first published in 1994. The edition I had included an afterword written after Grealy’s death in 2002, by her friend and fellow Iowa Writers Workshop student, Ann Patchett. ( )

When Lucy Grealy was 9 years old she was diagnosed with cancer, requiring a third of her jaw to be removed. While chemotherapy and radiation eventually made her cancer-free, reconstructing her jaw would be a very long and complicated process. Lucy faced her many surgeries with courage; dealing with friends, classmates, and adolescence in general was another matter entirely. More than anything, Lucy wanted not just to be accepted, but to be loved and desired. This book, published when Lucy was 31, is her story of personal growth. But it is so much more than a “disease memoir.” My edition included an afterword by her best friend, the author Ann Patchett, who does a far better job than I could at explaining this book as a work of literature, dealing with universal truths in the context of Lucy’s illness:
This is a book that understands how none of us ever feel we are pretty enough while it makes us question the very concept of beauty. It touches on our fears that love and approval are things we will always have to struggle to keep. It takes something so personal and so horrible that it is, for most of us, completely beyond our comprehension, and turns it into a mirror on ourselves.

Lucy was a poet and writer, who sadly died at age 39. Her talent is evident in the way she used her personal story, her quest for “beauty,” to create that mirror. I only wish we could hear more from her. ( )

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE, by Lucy Grealy - 236 Pages

From Publishers Weekly: Diagnosed at age nine with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that severely disfigured her face, Grealy lost half her jaw, recovered after two and half years of chemotherapy and radiation, then underwent plastic surgery over the next 20 years to reconstruct her jaw.

When Lucy was able to attend school or otherwise out in public she was either taunted outright, usually by groups of boys, or stared at by strangers. Despite her bravery throughout her ordeal, good friends, natural intelligence, and talent as a poet, she came to believe she was unlovable because of her disfigurement.

Lucy’s memoir is matter-of-fact, and often funny. While she clearly has self-esteem issues, she has a core of resilience that keeps her going. I admit to reading this book because I was going to read Ann Patchett’s book “Truth and Beauty” and discovered it portrayed her long close friendship with Lucy. If you read the one, I strongly suggest you read both. Together they provide the full picture of an enduring friendship. ( )

Lucy Grealy's powerful memoir about the premium we put on beauty and on a woman's face in particular. It took Lucy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood surgery left her jaw disfigured. Later she internalized the paralyzing fear of never being loved. Lucy Grealy awakens in us the difficult truth that beauty is to be found deep within. - summarized from jacket

Another perspective of the story starting at Sarah Lawrence is by Ann Patchett, Truth and Beauty ( )

The notion that “beauty is only skin deep” and that people can look below the surface and see the true worth of a person is for the most part fiction – to think otherwise is commendable but delusional. One’s physical appearance and the manner in which other people react to it have profound effects on one’s self-image and ability to navigate life. This is especially true with the face – the focal point of all of our social interactions.

“Autobiography of a Face” by Lucy Grealy is the unsentimental account of the author’s lifelong struggle with childhood cancer (Ewing’s sarcoma of the mandible diagnosed in 1972 when Grealy was 9 years old) and the devastating consequences of its treatment by surgery, radiation and chemotherapy as well as the less than satisfactory results of numerous reconstructive surgical procedures.

The book is difficult to read, especially Grealy’s wrenching accounts of her treatment (especially the adverse effects of chemotherapy and the long and difficult recoveries from surgery) and her unflinching portrayal of teasing by boys at school. She gives a graphic description of her chemotherapy administered using a large syringe and butterfly needle by the detached Dr. Woolf who simultaneously talks on his phone. She describes the severe nausea of the infusion and being sick for days after a treatment: “My body, wanting to turn itself inside out, made wave after wave of attempts to rid itself of this unseeable intruder, this overwhelming and noxious poison.” There are sad descriptions of repeated reconstructive surgeries that left much to be desired, and surgeons who overestimated the likelihood of a successful outcome. The radiation therapy resulted in late complications that led to many restorative dental procedures, also with less than satisfactory results. Lucy finds she enjoys wearing a mask at Halloween: “I walked down the streets suddenly bold and free: no one could see my face. I peered through the oval eye slits and did not see one person staring back at me, ready to make fun of my face.” Later, when she is older and her hair has grown back after chemotherapy, she covers the affected side of her face with her beautiful hair.

The redemptive value of the unconditional love of animals is a bright spot in the book. Grealy works at a stable and develops a love of horses. She acquires a horse (Sure Swinger) when the owner moves away and cannot take the horse, but Swinger develops an infection of the hoof and dies suddenly (from what appears to be tetanus). Her father, who for the most part suffers silently over his daughter’s life-threatening illness, develops pancreatitis and dies just before Grealy turns 16. Lucy becomes interested in poetry in high school and gets a scholarship to Sarah Lawrence College where she excels and becomes more comfortable in an environment where “everyone cultivated an air of being an outsider.”

The book ends somewhat abruptly after Lucy goes to graduate school and spends some time travelling in Europe. The short bio on the back cover indicates that Grealy “spent most of her life in New York, where she grew up, and where she died in 2002.” All of her surgeries led her doctors (understandably) to prescribe a lot of narcotic painkillers, and Grealy became dependent on oxycontin. Her death at age 39 was a result of an overdose of heroin in New York City, not recurrence of her childhood cancer.

If this depressing book makes people realize how difficult it is for a person who looks different, then it has accomplished an important purpose. Now, if it could only make people behave differently toward such people and see the value of person below the surface, then that would be a real miracle. After all, “beauty is only skin deep.” ( )

I'm not sure how I feel about this book. There were times it made me pity Lucy, times I truly identified with her, times I could not understand her thought process at all. I was horrified how her parents handled her illness and was stunned at the medical profession's nonchalance about her emotional state during the 30 years we read about her life. So the book was successful from the point that I really felt for a time that I understood what she had gone through.

However, I was disappointed at the end. I had hoped that she would have come to some conclusion, or at least, less ambivalence about her situation, but that did not happen. I didn't expect her to start skipping around but I thought she might find a sliver of nirvana or peace. Although the final words hint at that, they never go so far and it felt more like a "required wrap up" for the book to end in so many words than a real conclusion. ( )

I didn't love this book, but it was good. Well-written and solid with a strong core to it. And even someone who hasn't had cancer can find universal concepts in Grealy's story that they can relate to, that makes a good book. ( )

Lucy Grealy didn’t realize she’d had cancer until a casual comment in family conversation registered, and she linked the word to the diagnosis of Ewing’s sarcoma. The tumor removed from her jaw at age 9 drastically affected her life, in part because she spent the bulk of several years as hospital inpatient or outpatient, enduring painful ordeals of radiation and chemotherapy, and in part because along with significant physical effects (difficulty chewing and swallowing, for example), the cosmetic result was a deformed face, a _target of pity and bullying. She grew her hair long so it would cover her face when she hung her head, characteristic posture. She felt free only at Halloween when she could wear a mask. Surgery after surgery carved flesh and bone from her body in efforts to reconstruct her jaw, and she imagined that her life would begin when her face was fixed. Her face was never fixed, but her life did begin, in teenage years through a job at a horse stable, and in college as a poet, an identity that allowed a defiance about appearance and a presentation of intellect and wit. The tone at the end is optimistic.

And then she died, at age 39, which these days you know from the cover blurb; at the time of original publication, the end was well in the future, and public readings attracted audiences of cancer survivors. Her death changes the perception of everything she wrote, from triumph over devastating illness to WTF happened? Of course she was far more than her face, but her face, physically and philosophically, is the focus of this book, which is simultaneously revealing and claustrophobic.

What a wonderful reflection on a difficult life! At the age of 9, Grealy was diagnosed with cancer and subsequently had half of her lower jaw removed. Following this surgery, young Grealy had radiation, chemotherapy and multiple surgeries to repair her dentition and to attempt to reconstruct her jaw. Throughout her childhood and young adulthood, the author essentially defined herself by her illness and treatments, and anticipated that her life would "begin" when her face was fixed.

Grealy's style is frank and open, and the reader must admire her relative fearlessness. As an adult writing about her unusual childhood, she honestly assesses her actions and motivations and gives us a picture of a bright, resilient girl. The bulk of the book is spent on her childhood, and the last few chapters rush through her young adulthood and the continuing surgeries, one of which finally restores a portion of her jaw.

Though most of us never have to face disfigurement such as Lucy Grealy did, as a reader I could still identify with her childish belief in "if only." If only her face were not disfigured, everything would be perfect in her life. If only she had a beautiful face she would find love. If only her family were not so "different," life would be ideal. I believe most humans have some glimmer of this belief: if only I were more attractive, more intelligent, thinner, wealthier, THEN everything would be perfect. I found the end of this book to be a bit of a letdown, mostly because I had bought into Grealy's assumption that everything would be fine once her jaw was repaired. Of course it did not live up to her expectations and of course she now has to learn, as all of us do, to live with the cards she's been dealt.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) her hardships, Grealy has been academically and intellectually successful. She is an accomplished poet and teacher, she has had vibrant friendships, she has been able to travel and live in various places, and she seems to have a full life. I did feel that the story ended a bit abruptly. After laying her childhood bare, Grealy seems to have held back with regard to her adulthood. Perhaps her recent experiences are too recent for her to view clearly and comment on.

The bullying and teasing Grealy suffered did not play as large a role in the story as I had expected, although it was clear that the taunts deeply affected the author and her sense of self worth. I was appalled at the behavior she described. I know children can be mean and see depictions of teasing and bullying all the time, but I did not experience this sort of behavior (or I was blissfully unaware of it) and I did not inflict it. I cannot understand people who have no empathy, especially for someone whose appearance and situation are so obviously out of her control.

Overall, I found this to be a thoroughly engrossing and ultimately uplifting memoir. Highly recommended!

I did mark a few passages that stood out to me:

One had to be good. One must never complain or struggle. One must never, under any circumstances, show fear and, prime directive above all, one must never, ever cry. I was nothing if not harsh. Had I not found myself in the role of sick child, I would have made an equally good fascist or religious martyr.

+++

Gradually my earliest memories of Ireland transformed into pure myth. Where I was now was not only no good, it was getting worse all the time. The flawless times of the family were past; I had missed them simply by being born too late. I began a lifelong affair with nostalgia, with only the vaguest notions of what I was nostalgic for.

+++

I resolved to Believe, even in the face of this lack of response. Was it possible to prove my worthiness by repeatedly asking the question, even in the brunt of this painful silence? In the same way I was sure I could prove my love, and lovability, to my mother by showing her I could "take it," I considered the idea that what God wanted from me was to keep trying and trying and trying, no matter how difficult it was. My goal, and my intended reward, was to understand.

+++

In my carefully orchestrated shabbiness, I was hoping to beat the world to the finish line by showing that I already knew I was ugly. Still, all the while, I was secretly hoping that in the process some potential lover might accidentally notice I was wearing my private but beautiful heart on my stained and fraying sleeve. ( )

A palpable relief after 1Q84 and Redshirts. I can feel my brain unclenching.

After a few more chapters ...
Yes, the prose is great, but I am uninterested in my own let alone anyone else's health. Why am I reading about somebody's cancer? Only toward the end, when she discussed face and identity, did I get interested, and the tone of the last chapters was entirely different than that of the first three fourths.

It was a great read. Some of her sentences really struck a nerve.
let me go find one...................

About the way kids at school have to pick teams. (and they still do this nowadays and I remember how horrible that was. I was never picked last but always nearly last and that hurt. I hated sports and especially the picking).
"How could one doubt that the order in which one was picked for the softball team was anything but concurrent with the order in which Life would be handing out favors?"

She wrote this book in such an honest way, sometimes really tough to read. weirdly enough i did recognise a lot, especially the part about having pain and such and feeling so insecure.

Now I want to read Ann Pratchet's book: Truth and Beauty. I might treat myself.
I do not know how she died but I am sure I will find out.
( )

hmm...i read this right after reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett, a few years ago. i don't know why i didn't rate/review grealy's book though??

i really loved it. lucy was flawed and raw and i loved reading her story. ( )

This book gives the reader the opportunity to somewhat understand what it is like to have cancer. This can be a great educational tool to help students understand that discrimination can hurt. It is great because in the recent times bullying has become a bit of an epidemic. It is also very well-written in a very controlled and clear voice yet brutally honest. ( )

I found it interesting to read this soon after Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty, knowing when their lives intersect, seeing what Grealy chose to leave out, and then wondering what other details she left out. The edition I read included an afterword by Ann Patchett that talked about how the author shapes a memoir by deciding what to put in and what to leave out. It's sort of like choosing the message the author wants to convey and picking through the events of her life for those that support this message. What was Lucy Grealy's underlying message? What I got was the disconnect between how we see ourselves and how others see us, the larger question of what constitutes "beauty," and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of our own lives, mostly in terms of punishments and rewards for our actions and thoughts. The writing in this book is rich, as are the ideas. I think I will be pondering over this one for quite a while. ( )

Lucy Grealy writes beautifully of her struggles with childhood cancer and how deformity, socially defined, challenges perceptions of beauty, self and worth. Her painful journey results finally in her own definition.

Unfortunately, I read her memoir in the form of an ebook that was riddled with typos. There were so many that they were distracting. Obviously, this has no impact on her work but it is a shame. ( )

Quite a book. Make sure you read it in conjunction with Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty. Not a happy tale, but Lucy was gifted with language, and it is a gripping story. I found myself yelling at her as I was reading it... ( )