Rating: 
Summary: What a moving piece
Review:
This is a moving piece of literature filled with warmth from the heart and friendship that knows no bounds. Inspirational,sweet,beautiful.
Also recommended: Secret Life Of Bees,Nightmares Echo,She's Come Undone,Three Weeks With My Brother
Rating: 
Summary: A Friendship Gone Haywire
Review: This is Ann Patchett's first biography.It concerns the time
when she and Poet Lucy Grealy shared a room at the Iowa
Writer's Workshop and became best friends.
Although beautifully constucted and told,I found it to be more of an autobiography of Ann.
In the beginning,Ann,was a great support to Lucy(whose
entire lower jaw)Had been destroyed by Cancer at the tender
age of eleven years.Lucy originated from Ireland,where her early
years took place.
Unsatisfied,with her looks,Lucy continuued having surgery
in her Adult life.She playfully adopted Ann's family,and
went there for Thanksgiving and Christmas.It did not mention
where her parents were staying.
Oftentimes,the surgery made Lucy look worse.We can only
guess at the emotional damage she suffered waiting to see
what she would look like.A women's greatest physical vanity
is tied into her facial presentation.
Ann's published books came out before Lucy's,causing some
jealousy,on Lucy's part,but Lucy would always return to Ann
for comfort.Lucy had found more friends as she published her
memoirs and poetry.Lucy was a high maintenance woman,expecting
much from her friends.My personal opinion was Lucy stayed
at the eleven year old stage,when all the horrible damage
was done to a child.
Toward the end,Ann presents herself as Lucy's sole survivor
and caretaker.Telling the whole world of Lucy's abortion.
Her dabbling in cocaine,and other sef destuctive behavior.
Would a friend,a close friend,tell this to the World.
Ann talks lovingly of her own family,but what of Lucy's ?
Now they have all this information,Lucy would probably prefer
they never heard.
I cannot conceive of a friend who tells all her friends faults in a book,after she is dead.
I can only think Ann became too burdened,and took on too
much,and felt no gratitude.
What was sweet in the beginning changed over the years,
for both young women.
Rating:
Summary: What a moving piece
Review: <br /><br />This is a moving piece of literature filled with warmth from the heart and friendship that knows no bounds. Inspirational,sweet,beautiful. <br />Also recommended: Secret Life Of Bees,Nightmares Echo,She's Come Undone,Three Weeks With My Brother
Rating:
Summary: Patchett's Frank and Tender First Work of Nonfiction
Review: Female friendships are one of the most complex human relationships, regardless of age. And in TRUTH & BEAUTY, author Ann Patchett does nothing to dispel the mystery of girlfriends. If anything, she adds to it.Although this book is nonfiction, it reads like fiction. Readers will dive into the story, greedily gathering information about the two main subjects --- Patchett and her friend, Lucy Grealy --- like characters in a novel. They were two young and ambitious women who go directly from Sarah Lawrence to the Iowa's Writers Workshop, the most coveted graduate school for writers. They develop a friendship that straddles the lines of intimacy, and they find literary fame. Along the way they form a bond that is difficult to describe. It spans continents, weathers illnesses both physical and mental, and seems to survive even death. But this is not a work of fiction, and so the eloquent writing of this well-known author packs even more of a punch. These are real people; this is Patchett's life, her beloved friend who lives, metaphorically speaking, just beyond her reach. Patchett recreates her life with Grealy by interspersing their history with letters she received from Grealy over the years, postmarked from Scotland, New York, Providence, Connecticut, and all of the other places she traveled, taught and lived. They are letters that reveal a literary voice filled with love and admiration for a woman to whom she referred as "Pet." She was a competitive woman who was known to jump into Patchett's lap and ask repeatedly, "Am I your favorite? Do you love me the most?" And inevitably the answer was yes. "Dearest Anvil, she would write to me six years later, dearest deposed president of some now defunct but lovingly remembered country, dearest to me, I can find no suitable words of affection for you, words that will contain the whole of your wonderfulness to me. You will have to make due with being my favorite bagel, my favorite blue awning above some great little café where the coffee is strong but milky and had real texture to it." Narrated by Patchett, TRUTH & BEAUTY could be described as an analysis of Grealy, a woman who fights an uphill battle to recover physically from a cancer that robbed her of her outward beauty as a child, though it amplified an inner beauty. Grealy, as Patchett tells us, had a kind of animal magnetism that drew the best of people to her. She underwent at least 35 surgeries to rebuild a jaw decimated by radiation and lived her life subsisting on mashed fruits, ice cream and the occasional milkshake. Despite the staggering number of surgeries, the procedures never quite worked and much of Grealy's life was spent lamenting what she believed were her physical inadequacies. Yet TRUTH & BEAUTY is not a sad story. In fact, it features the gifts of Grealy's best features: her wit, gaiety and zest for life. And while it focuses on Grealy and Patchett's friendship, TRUTH & BEAUTY may be better described as a study of human nature. Patchett writes about the intricacies of the human heart in THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT, THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS and BEL CANTO, and she tackles the subject once again in TRUTH & BEAUTY. The constant search for a love that seems to be right in front of a person's eyes is a recurring theme for Patchett, who weaves a beautiful if not frustrating story of a friendship that she worked diligently to maintain. In life many people struggle to find reciprocal friendships in men and women. And, frequently, outsiders perceive even the best of friendships to be one-sided. This may also be the case here. Readers will complete TRUTH & BEAUTY with a keen appreciation for the love that exists between women, the unwavering loyalty that friends can maintain through years of turmoil and emotional trials. And while loyalty (as we see in this 257-page story) may falter occasionally, it can withstand the test of time. And perhaps even beyond. --- Reviewed by Heather Grimshaw
Rating: 
Summary: Exhausting read
Review: I finished "Truth and Beauty" last night, and found myself glad that I had finished it. By the end, I was quite weary of Lucy Grealy's antics and neediness...did Patchett intend for Grealy to come off this way? The relationship between Patchett and Grealy seems one-sided as portrayed by the author, and left me wondering WHY Patchett felt such love for Grealy. Frankly, the book drained me.
Rating:
Summary: Truthfully beautiful
Review: I pored through this novel in record speed. This was such an articulate, delicate, detailed recollection of a friendship. I had read Autobiography of a Face a few months before reading T&B and found that T&B really enhanced the experience of reading Grealy's book. I loved everything about this book and highly recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: I Can Sympathize
Review: I sympathize with Ann throughout the course of this novel. I understand what it is to love a friend so unconditionally that it seems natural to search all over town in the middle of the night for apricot nectar, and then hold the recipient's head as they throw it up. I know what it is to see a person's flaws and shortcomings, selfishness and self-centeredness, but to understand where it all comes from and to love them as a result. Patchett strikes me as a woman with a deep well of love for Grealy, and perhaps she is the type of person who needs to be needed. But she is also the type, to me, who loves others for the qualities she knows she doesn't possess. She sees the charisma and strength of her best friend and loves her for it, just as it appears so many other people did, but still loved her when that strength dissipated. Perhaps Patchett really wrote this as a way of explaining why she loved Lucy so much...not only explaining it to others, but to herself. I think of this book as a fine testament to friendship, committment and loyalty, and it saddens me that the relationship these two women had ended so tragically.
Rating:
Summary: A stunning portrait of the realities of friendship
Review: I've read through many of the reviews here, and I think they nicely show the range of reactions I had to this book while I read it. I found it beautifully written and also confounding -- it is often hard to see why Ann puts up with Lucy, or what made Lucy so charming to attract her loyal circle of friends. And yet, in the end, that seeming contradiction is what made me love this book. Patchett is writing an honest assessment of her friend here -- but not only her friend, but herself. She is honest in showing that while she herself found herself to be often boring (as in early on, when her writing teachers are always confusing her with other students), she was attracted to Lucy's star quality and the drama she brought into her own life and the people in her circle. While Ann enters into a not-so-great relationship (to the man she marries), she eagerly follows the story of Lucy's relationship with "B" throughout grad school. Ann and Lucy both found something they needed in each other, and I don't find that to be co-dependent at all, I find that to be the deepest of friendship, when we fulfill something in each other and find something we need in each other to feel complete.
My best friend had cancer when she was three, and the lingering effects of the harsh radiation on her body has left her with health problems all her life. I've spent nights with her as she threw up, have endured her being hours late due to not feeling well, have talked through her fears of the cancer returning, have found out she didn't call one night because she was in the emergency room. My friend is nothing like Lucy, but I know what it's like to have a friend who is constantly sick and demanding attention, sometimes simply because they need it. And I felt Ann really captured that sense of needing to be needed, and how it is impossible not to answer the call of a friend who needs you and needs you now, no matter how inconvenient.
I haven't read Lucy's book, but I just bought it and plan to start it soon. I'm eager to see how she writes about herself. I have read Ann Patchett's "Bel Canto" and loved it, and thought she did an amazing job here in very plainly and openly describing the many facets -- sometimes ugly and hard to understand -- of a long friendship.
Rating:
Summary: AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A BROKEN HEART AND A BRILLIANT MIND
Review: If you've read Lucy Grealy's book AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE, you must read Ann Patchett's book TRUTH & BEAUTY. Ann was Lucy's best friend and tells the story of their loving and literary friendship. Ann's book is filled with Lucy's letters. The book tells of how Lucy was taunted by kids and adults because of her facial cancer. Readers get to see into Lucy's heart and how because of her "ugly" face she thought no one would ever love her. yet she beds every man who says something nice to her out of a need to connect and feel "love.". this book is a fantastic look into the heart and mind of someone with a visible disability. it is about someone with a brilliant mind. and it's filled with triumph and tragedy. And if you haven't read AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A FACE, I recommend that too. In both books you'll see the life of a driven woman hoping her genius and writing abilities will save her from what she thinks is the tragedy of her disability and make someone love her and she will live happily ever after. Sadly Lucy died of a drug overdose a few years ago. was it an accident or suicide?? she was heartbroken. she never thought she would find love. but so many of her friends loved her.
Rating:
Summary: The Face of an Autobiography?
Review: In chronicling the events surrounding Ann Patchett's relationship with Lucy Grealy, the author has written neither a biography nor an autobiography, but instead an encomium. That Grealy touched Patchett's life is unquestionable, but Patchett seems unwilling or unable to offer more than surface insight into why she fostered an obviously non-reciprocal relationship with the urchin-like Grealy, who plopped into her life full tilt. Ann extolls Lucy's celebrity-like charisma, but by comparison that often makes Ann seem akin to a groupie. Too frequently Grealy comes across as a petulant child in the "maternalish" consternation of Patchett's voice. The book is beautifully written, but the subject matter is not beautifully analyzed. I would have appreciated more of Patchett's insights and opinions about whether a relationship this intense and unbalanced was really a friendship at all. By the time the book ends, she clearly is still too raw to share this with us. If it had been written with the benefit of more time lapsing since Grealy's death, we might have also learned about the resulting philosophical changes in Patchett's "life without Grealy." As it stands, I fear the book serves as little more than an admittedly interesting footnote to Grealy's life.
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