Truth & Beauty: A Friendship - Softcover

Patchett, Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060572159 ISBN 13: 9780060572150

Publisher: Harper Perennial, 2005

Synopsis

"A loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can't distinguish burden from embrace." --People

New York Times Bestselling author Ann Patchett's first work of nonfiction chronicling her decades-long friendship with the critically acclaimed and recently deceased author, Lucy Grealy.

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 defining to both of their lives as their work. In Gealy's critically acclaimed and hugely successful memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing part of her jaw to childhood cancer, years of chemotherapy and radiation, and endless reconstructive surgeries. In Truth & Beauty, the story isn't Lucy's life or Ann's life, but the parts of their lives they shared together. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long cold winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in New York. Through love, fame, drugs, and despair, this is what it means to be part of two lives that are intertwined...and what happens when one is left behind.

This is a tender, brutal book about loving the person we cannot save. It is about loyalty and being uplifted by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

About this title

Review:

"A contemporary story of friendship and the writing life at once intense, honest, and heartbreaking. Highly recommended."--Library Journal (starred review)

"Unforgettable...carefully rendered and breathtaking."--Chicago Sun-Times

"An inspired duet...riveting."--Joyce Carol Oates--New York Times Book Review

"{a} loving, clear-sighted portrayal.."--Elle

"...lyrical, lovely...Patchett has preserved her friend's talent in this book, and provided more evidence of her own."--BookPage

About the Author:

ANN PATCHETT is the author of seven novels, The Patron Saint of Liars, Taft, The Magician's Assistant, Bel Canto, Run, State of Wonder, and Commonwealth. She was the editor of Best American Short Stories, 2006, and has written three books of nonfiction, Truth & Beauty, about her friendship with the writer, Lucy Grealy, What now? an expansion of her graduation address at Sarah Lawrence College, and, most recently, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage, a collection of essays.

In November 2011, she opened Parnassus Books in Nashville, Tennessee, with her partner Karen Hayes. She has since gone on to be a spokesperson for independent booksellers, talking about books and bookstores on "The Colbert Report," NPR, "The Martha Stewart Show" and "The CBS Early Show." Along with James Patterson she was the honorary chair of World Book Night. In 2012 she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World.

Ann Patchett lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Karl VanDevender, and their dog, Sparky.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0060572159
• ISBN 13: 9780060572150
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272