Autobiography of a Face

Categories: Staff Picks , Nonfiction

Lucy Grealy was diagnosed at age 9 with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that led to multiple surgeries and resulted in the loss of a third of her jaw. Surviving childhood taunts and exposure to endless doctors and hospitals, Grealy went on to become a writer of poetry, essays and her own story, Autobiography of a Face. Grealy's writing is straightforward, lyrical and compulsively readable.

Ann Patchett, renowned author and graduate school roommate of Grealy's, wrote the afterword to the paperback edition of Autobiography of a Face. Patchett states that Grealy's book "can certainly be read as an account of a child's cancer and disfigurement (a word Lucy despised), but it can also be read as it was written: as a piece of literature." Sadly, Grealy died in 2002 at age 39, and the world suffers in not having more of her writing.

A great companion piece to Grealy's book is Truth and Beauty, Ann Patchett's memoir of the friendship she had with Grealy, and a beautiful tribute to Grealy's life.