Autobiography of a Face
Book description
A New York Times Notable Book
"Grealy has turned her misfortune into a book that is engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of her own wit and style and class."—Washington Post Book World
“It is impossible to read Autobiography of a Face…
Why read it?
4 authors picked Autobiography of a Face as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Who among us has never felt shame? Who has never felt one’s spirit crushed? I myself have returned for relief from that periodic loss of inner spirit to this brave, unsentimental memoir of the ravages on Lucy Grealy’s face of a disease that condemned her to a punishing self-loathing.
Reading this boldly unabashed memoir of conquering shame, of finding an “inner eye” (and inner life) that could come to see as beautiful what the seeing eyes of the world saw only as ugly, I have felt buoyed by the possibility of reclaiming your own true self against the ravages of…
From Alan's list on moving, profound books about loss and resilience.
Lucy Grealy’s story swept me along on an intimate, death-defying journey from girlhood to young womanhood and confronted me with questions about the nature of identity itself.
I love her frank yet lyrical voice and the way she elevates mundane moments to the level of cosmic tests and divine interventions. She is generous with her rich imagination and invited me into a beautiful, private world where I wanted to stay even longer so that I could continue to look through her eyes.
From Genevieve's list on young women on journeys of self-discovery.
Perhaps it takes a gifted poet to write about loneliness and pain in a way that is free of self-pity. Lucy Grealy is that poet, and this is the book I recommend in my grief self-help workbook (published in 2014).
Ms. Grealy, diagnosed with cancer at only 9, lost a third of her jaw and eventually underwent 30 torturous surgeries. She endured not only ridicule from classmates, but her own feelings of ugliness and rejection. This memoir is full of wit, insight, and beautifully crafted sentences that spare the reader from much of the frightening details. If ever there was…
From Carol's list on on loss that do more than make us cry.
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Grealy lost her jaw to cancer when she was a young girl and endured many reconstructive surgeries. Her facial deformities and how people reacted to her appearance determined the course of her life and art. “I was my face, I was ugliness. . . .Everything led to it, everything receded from it—my face as personal vanishing point.” Grealy was a hard person to befriend (I knew her briefly), and she died of an accidental overdose after many years of addiction to pain medication. The work she left behind is not easily forgotten.
From Sallie's list on the existential crisis of looking in a mirror.
If you love Autobiography of a Face...
Tap Dancing on Everest
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
The team attempts a new route up…
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