Autobiography of a Face

Rating:
Summary: Self-recognition, not self-pity
Review: In "Autobiography of a Face", Lucy Grealy explores how her disfigurement from cancer surgery came to be the central theme of her life and that of her family.

Even the title shows how Grealy has identified herself with her face above all else. The autobiography of Lucy Grealy has become the autobiography of her face because for a great part of her life Ms. Grealy was nothing more than a face, or at least it seemed so. Doctors, fellow students, family members, and complete strangers see not a woman with a disfigured face; they see a disfigured face.

Grealy shows how she also falls under the spell of her disability, allowing it to control her life and dictate her future to a greater extent than it otherwise would. Yes, having a disability means that sometimes you have to say "I'm disabled, therefore I can't....", but as Grealy finally learns, it also means sometimes saying "I'm disabled, but I can!".

All in all this is an inspiring book, one I'm glad I read and one I would highly recommend, especially to other disabled readers.

Rating:
Summary: Lucy Grealy, Behind a Veil
Review: I expected this book to be much grittier and "confessional" in tone, so I was not prepared for the ease and grace of Lucy Grealy's writing. Grealy's recounting of her childhood battle with a serious form of cancer and the years of reconstructive surgery that follows is at once introspective and detached.

I agree with some of the other reviewers who said they felt Grealy was revealing only what she wanted the reader to know -- that there's more to this story than what she included here. While I found this intriguing and slightly frustrating, I did not feel cheated. Had Grealy lived, there might have been other books that focused on other aspects of her illness and surgeries -- how it affected her family's daily life, her relationships with her siblings (especially her twin sister), and so on. Issues that were only touched upon in this book, but which could have formed the thematic basis for several subsequent memoirs.

Though I was a little disappointed not to have been given more information about those things in this book, I realize that the title of the book is "Autobiography of a Face," and the focus of the book is exactly that -- this the story of Lucy Grealy's face, and "how it got that way." While her careful honing and focusing of the book's contents did leave me slightly dissatisfied because of all the other things I wanted to know, I can't deny what looks like a marvelous job of Grealy remaining true to her intended subject.

I must confess, I'm looking forward to reading Ann Patchett's "Truth and Beauty," which allegedly offers a look at Lucy Grealy that differs from what Grealy allows us in her own book.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty depressing but kept me glued to it nonetheless.
Review: the writing...well i definitely don't feel competent enough to do justice to it's merits. all i can say is it seems literary but it is so readable. about what it's used to express i found infinitely depressing though. as i read about this woman's childhood ordeal and how it shaped her, i wasn't really thinking it was remarkable. i imagine that when you are in terrible circumstances you would think in similar terms as the author did though probably not in such a well-realized, eloquent way.

i always had this feeling that people who are disfigured, people who have experienced incredible hardship do indeed have a more cosmic perspective of life and therefore are more removed from their more animal inclinations. what this book proves to me is that no matter how self-aware a person is, no matter how smart and knowing a person's perspective, a person can still not accept himself and succumb.

i also had this feeling that the author was not really particularly sympathetic toward ugly people herself. she seems to have been obsessed with attractiveness in general. she describes her romantic partners just as attractive to her and little else about them.

well i don't know. i just finished the book and thought am i supposed to find this book inspiring? i certainly didn't. it left me uncomfortable and depressed.

Rating:
Summary: Some Self-Insight But Not Enough
Review: I wasn't carried away by her writing, nor the content particularly. I kept reading in the hopes that things would get better, that someone would finally realize Lucy's worth (perhaps herself) or that one single doctor would come up with a cure-all for her facial disfigurement. However, I was disappointed. Ms. Grealy left a lot of questions unanswered. Her mother "had" to leave her job that she had had for many years. Why? Her father died of pancreatitis - how did he develop that? Did he drink? Ms. Grealy admits that she was very detached about her father's death - and so too, it seemed was her twin sister. Was the sister identical? We are not told. Ms. Grealy may discuss things once (such as her relationship to school friends after her operation), then never mention these friends again. She states that her brother later developed schizophrenia, but doesn't talk about him, or any of her family members in any depth. They are not important characters. Basically, this book is all about her feelings about her face and how other people judge her (so she thinks)on her looks. Why does she care what they think? She seems not to worry about packing up and moving anywhere, so she is confident enough for that. She is given a generous scholarship to Sarah Lawrence, although she previously mentioned that she was a "mediocre" student. She moves to Iowa, she moves to Germany, she moves to England, she moves to Scotland. She receives many free reconstructive surgeries(or so she says), all the while not working a full-time job, or even a part-time job most of the time. She partied, she had friends. Ms. Grealy does not seem thankful for any of this, she is too busy wallowing in her self-pity.

Ms. Grealy seemed to pick and choose what she wanted the reader to know. I'm now reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. I'm only on the third chapter, but already know more than this book let on.

Ms. Grealy did suffer through awful surgeries, 2 1/2 years of radiation and chemotherapy (Although Truth and Beauty says 5 years - that would be a bit much), many horrible experiences in the hospital by nurses and butchering doctors who just didn't give a damn, and immature bozos in her school. They should be shot - and where in the world was her twin sister during all of this? Lucy speaks as if she were completely alone in school, so alone that she had to eat her lunch in the counselor's office so that these cruel boys couldn't attack her.

I hate that she felt so badly about herself. But she just couldn't let it go. I wish that Lucy Greely had found a good therapist and increased her self-esteem, taken her focus off her face and decided to concentrate on others who needed her. Her book really leaves me wondering what kind of person she would have been had she not had the disfigurement. I really get the feeling that she wanted others to care about her, but she didn't really care too much for anyone else.

This book could have been fleshed out quite a bit more to explain Lucy's experiences in life. As it is written, it seems very one-dimensional. The only thing I can say is perhaps this book will be a lesson to us to be grateful for what we have, and to have more compassion and empathy for others and ourselves.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent
Review: I read this book a few years ago and was utterly captivated by Grealy's humor, wit, honesty and courage, even though I imagine she would probably balk at being called courageous. She was made to write and she had so much more to say; just wish she had had the chance to say it.

Rating:
Summary: Hard to process it all
Review:
When this book came out, it created a sensation, not just for the raw facts of Lucy Grealy's ordeal but even more for the lyrical, insightful point of view from which it was written. Diagnosed at 9 years of age with Ewing's sarcoma, a potentially fatal cancer that attacked her lower jaw, she underwent disfiguring surgery and horrific chemo and radiation that further distorted her appearance. She used, in this memoir, her experience as a springboard from which to soar into passionate examinations of the meaning of truth, beauty, genius, love - all those biggies - and she did it with stunning success. Her background as a poet shines through each paragraph of this seminal book.
But.
Then she died, and although her death was ruled accidental, it's clear she had been on a steady downward spiral through the last couple of years of her life. Ann Patchett's stunning and conflicted story of her 20-year friendship with Grealy (Truth and Beauty) uncovers the raw underbelly of Lucy Grealy's personality, her unending quest to be special, first, best, and most of all, lovable.
To get a fuller picture, one that I feel still isn't quite complete, of this quixotic individual, it's imperative that readers of Grealy's book also read Patchett's.


Rating:
Summary: Glad I read it...
Review: I am glad I read it because I got a very small glimpse of what life was like for her. I was hoping for a story of triumph over tragedy and it wasn't. It was tragedy on top of tragedy and there was a lot of the story missing. For example, she barely mentions her twin sister. Also, the afterword implies that her untimely death was in some way related to the cancer but doesn't go into any more detail than that. It is true that when I picked the book up in the book store I bought it because I was really hoping for a story of triumph and if I had read that she died from a self-inflicted drug overdose I probably would have set the book down and moved on. My first clue that she had not gained much wisdom was even before I got to the contents. She dedicated the book "To my friends, whom I love". Anybody can love their friends. That's easy. I gave the book four stars because I read it in less than one day. Not many books that I just can't put down.

Rating:
Summary: Enlightenment through beautiful proxe
Review: I just finished Autobiography of a Face and I found it just a beautiful, touching read. Lucy writes with such incredible introspection and heartfelt feeling that one must stop from time to time to just reflect on her insight. I truly wondered where she got the strength to endure all that she did. I felt her emptiness in situations and yet her strength inspite of it. Her mother just seemed to totally not get the whole experience or at least couldn't deal with it, so Lucy was left to her own devices. The insight into the boy she meets in the hospital who is paralyzed after a diving accident just blew me away. She writes, "I did it for him. I'd close my eyes to feel the height, see the bright blue of the pool winking below me, bend my legs, and feel the pull in my calves as I jumped up and then down, falling from one world of unknowing into the next one of perpetual regret." What a gut-wrenching insight into the soul of this young man. She allowed me to view the world from a whole new perspective and I thank her wherever she may be. She was definitely an old soul who hopefully fulfilled her karma.

Rating:
Summary: seems odd
Review: This book did me in. I absolutely loved ever word. Lucy Grealy's prose is hauntingly beautiful. And her story is purely haunting, especially since her death, which sounds like it was a suicide. It is at once a deeply sad and profoundly hopeful book, full of wisdom and insight. As a reader who has dealt with a disabling chronic illness for the last 13 years, I felt "responance" with this book in a way that I have with no other book before or since.

Rating:
Summary: A truly inspiring story
Review: Autobiography Of A Face, by Lucy Grealy is a compelling story about a young girl faced with the fear of Ewing's Sarcoma, a cancer in her jaw. The book is an autobiography, told in the first person, which makes the story more sympathetic.

Lucy's family, which lives in Spring Valley, New York, immigrated to American from Ireland five years before they found out about Lucy's cancer. At the age of nine Lucy was outside at recess playing dodge ball, when she and another girl forcefully collided into each other. The blow to her face caused Lucy to have continuing pain through the evening and into the morning. After a few visits to the doctor, some false diagnoses, and surgery, the doctors realized Lucy had cancer in her jaw. After undergoing a major surgery that ended up removing one third of her jaw, Lucy then had to undergo three years of radiation and chemotherapy. Throughout all the procedures thus far, Lucy had been very naïve and ignorant of her situation. She heard what people were telling her, but didn't really listen. Instead, all she thought about was how she would be missing school, and how her "two absolute, hands-down favorite television programs were Emergency! And Medical Canter," and the possibility of having a situation like those in the TV show dramas made her ecstatic. However, as the number of surgeries and treatments increase, Lucy is not so excited about going to the hospital, and her identity starts to shift. Lucy was once the unique girl who always strived to be different, whereas after the major surgery removing one third of her jaw, she became self-conscious of how others may portray her. Lucy returned to school to find few friends and much teasing and ridicule by her peers. At first she ignored the cruelty, but then she started to believe what they were saying and question herself. This led to her self-consciousness behavior. Lucy had to suffer through the horrors of rejection, but in the end it made her a better person. By being constantly harassed, Lucy developed empathy for others who were suffering. It also gave her a new outlook on life in general. After suffering through the effects of cancer and harassment, Lucy learns to love herself, and accepts who she is, not what she looks like. She really looks deep inside, and finds her identity.

Identity is an important theme in the book, and is portrayed well with the way Lucy Grealy wrote the book. Her descriptions make the book very realistic, and they really help to connect you with the characters. In many parts of the book, imagery was used in a convincing way to make the story come to life. Grealy used rich language to further the reality that cancer can have on a family both emotionally and economically.

A weakness I noticed was that Grealy never directly wrote about her family, and how they interacted with each other. There were bits and pieces of how she interacted with her mother and father, but it never really gave a clear image as to what their family was like. Lucy had two older brothers, an older sister, as well as a twin sister. However, they were rarely written about. I wanted to know what the siblings were like, and how they felt about Lucy's sickness. Also, did they ever tease her about "looking funny" or were they supportive? After finishing the book, I felt this was one of the only incomplete parts that left me with questions.

Despite the book's few weaknesses, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a heart-touching story. This story really gives you an in-depth look at what it is like to be in someone else's shoes, and live their life through their ups and downs. It teaches many good lessons, and will certainly be enjoyable to most everyone!