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 Grealy's critically acclaimed memior, 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. This is a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans twenty years, from the long 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 lifted up by the sheer effervescence of someone who knew how to live life to the fullest.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 126 reviews)

fairly good

wonderfully written. if you put a gun to my head and ask who was a better writer, patchett or her friend lucy grealy, the friend that makes completes this companionship, i'd say grealy. much more forceful, passionate and wild writer, hence grealy is not alive now, but patchett is. good book however. check out grealy's writings too.
May 29, 2008

Couldn't put it down...

I don't like memoirs, but I read this one in one day. The two writers Anne Patchett and Lucy Grealy meet at Sarah Lawrence and later are roommates while pursuing Master's Degrees at the Iowa Writer's Workshop. Fate deals them both great success as writers, yet their personal paths take completely divergent courses. The bond of friendship spans two decades and countless heartbreaks. Anne Patchett does portray herself to be the 'saint' in this friendship but you would almost have to be to endure the suffering that being friend to Lucy Grealy demanded. The themes of friendship, art, loneliness and love are rendered with realism and depth. Patchett's obvious love for writing and her poet friend is shared in this gift of a book.
May 12, 2008

Would have enjoyed it more when I was younger

I'm giving this book 3 stars because I like Ann Patchett's writing very much, but the story isn't as interesting to me as a woman in my mid-40s as it would have been had I read this in my 20s. In my 20s, this would have been a grand sweeping tragedy - a life changing book, a standard by which to judge loyalty and friendship. In my 40s, I went "eh." I read this as the story of two highly dysfunctional people in a suffocating relationship. It feels like Patchett wrote it as a way to exorcise her grief; and also perhaps examine her own less than healthy behavior. It did make me want to read more of Patchett's fiction. I picked up a copy of Patron Saint of Liars and am going to give that a try next. Part of me wants to say, Ann just forgive yourself already. We've all been there and done that. Maybe not in such an extreme way or for so many years... but we've all been sucked in by a charming selfish user. Learn a lesson and move on.
May 04, 2008

No Ordinary Friendship

Readers will likely recognize the author's name from her previous novels, including Bel Canto, which won the PEN/Faulkner Award, and The Patron Saint of Liars, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Readers also may recognize Ann Patchett from her articles that appear in such publications as Gourmet, the New York Times Magazine, and the Paris Review. No doubt, some readers will recognize Patchett's friend, Lucy Grealy, as the author of the critically acclaimed memoir, Autobiography of a Face.

Truth & Beauty is the story of the friendship shared by Lucy Grealy and Ann Patchett. It is at once tender, heartwarming, heartbreaking and complex. Truth & Beauty is neither the story of Lucy nor the story of Ann, but of the parts of each life that were shared. What one lacked, the other offered for the relationship. What one shared, the other reached out to receive.

Ann and Lucy met in the early 1980s while attending college. At the Iowa Writers' Workshop, they began a friendship that would become a lifelong process. This is no ordinary friendship. It is one riddled with emotional upheaval, creative successes and disappointments, health crises, and ultimately the lecherous hold of drug abuse.

This is a phenomenal look at the way in which two exceptionally creative people lived, loved, wrote, and grappled with the realities of life. It is also an extremely sensitive description of the way a woman wrought with illness, despair and depression can one minute create beauty and the next minute search for ways to destroy herself.

Truth & Beauty is the story of two friends who loved one another through the best and worst of times. It is a portrayal of loyalty and devotion over more than twenty years of friendship, and a haunting, heartbreaking portrait of the belief in the invincibility of one who lives so largely despite their diminuitive size. Only to find that no one is invincible...no one.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
March 17, 2008

Favorite author, favorite book

The reason I even looked at reviews for this book is so that I could gage how trustworthy other book reviews on here are and how seriously I should take them. Now that I look at the negative, totally ridiculous critiques of Truth and Beauty, I'm never trusting another sour review on here again! When somebody asks me, "What's your favorite book?" I used to say something by T. Capote or M. Angelo, but now I reply, without hesitation, "TRUTH & BEAUTY by Ann Patchett!" Seriously. This book is awesome and I'm annoyed even reading other bad reviews on here about it. Patchett writes in a way that makes me stop, re-read the page, and then say to myself, "Damn, this is great stuff! Why didn't I think of something like that?" I think if you are an aspiring writer, or just somebody who appreciates intelligent, well-written prose, then you should read this one. Do not trust the other reviewers on this page - they're probably the kind of people who'd give a Harlequin novel 5 stars.
January 18, 2008

SIMILAR PRODUCTS

Autobiography of a Face
by Lucy Grealy

The Patron Saint of Liars: A Novel (P.S.)
by Ann Patchett

Run
by Ann Patchett

Bel Canto (P.S.)
by Ann Patchett

The Magician's Assistant
by Ann Patchett