Janet Maslin
The beauty of this book is in the details, and in the anecdotes so colorfully recalled. There is Lucy's blind date with George Stephanopoulos, who answered her personal ad in The New York Review of Books. There is the time the two aspiring authors watched "Glengarry Glen Ross" in horror, wondering what life would be like if they held David Mamet-style jobs. And there is the way Ms. Grealy could move down the street, "everyone waving as if she were gliding past on a rose-covered float." The drive-in bank teller would say hello. Ms. Grealy, however much she loved attention, sighed and told Ms. Patchett: "That's not even my bank."
The New York Times
Jocelyn McClurg
Truth & Beauty (the title comes from a chapter in Grealy's Autobiography) is heartbreaking, funny, disturbing, at times infuriating — just like the odd but endearing Lucy.
USA Today
The New York Times Book Review
Truth & Beauty is a harrowing document, composed in a spare, forthright style very different from the elegant artifice of Patchett's best-known novels...It can be no surprise that the memoir of a friendship that ends in the premature death of a gifted writer does not make for cheerful reading. And yet there is much in Truth & Beauty that is uplifting, a testament to the perennial idealism and optimism of the young.Joyce Carol Oates
Lisa Zeidner
… this memoir, dedicated to Grealy, is more love letter than autobiography. No reader will doubt the sincerity, or ferocity, of the love.
The Washington Post
The New Yorker
Lucy Grealy attained prominence, in 1994, with “Autobiography of a Face,” a restrained account of acute disfigurement and continual surgery after a childhood tumor required the removal of much of her lower jaw. Grealy died of a heroin overdose in 2002, at the age of thirty-nine, and Patchett’s memoir of her friend, whom she first met in college, reveals a level of anguish that was submerged in Grealy’s book. Patchett sees herself as the hardworking ant to Lucy’s glamorous grasshopper, with her life in New York, countless friends, and a habit of finishing work at the last minute. But Grealy’s tremendous gift for friendship signalled a deep neediness and an inability to be alone that also made it difficult for her to sit down and write. If Patchett’s book doesn’t quite stand on its own, it is a moving companion to Grealy’s.
Kirkus Reviews
In her first nonfiction, novelist Patchett (Bel Canto, 2001, etc.) paints a deeply moving portrait of friendship between two talented writers, illuminating the bond between herself and poet Lucy Grealy. Although they were undergraduates together at Sarah Lawrence, it was not until 1981, when both were teaching and writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, that the young women's lives collided. As Patchett recounts it, the tiny Grealy (Autobiography of a Face, 1994) leaped into her arms. "It was not so much a greeting as it was a claim: she was staking out this spot on my chest and I was to hold her for as long as she wanted to stay." That image persists in their 20-year friendship; Grealy had a powerful hold on her many friends, Patchett included. A survivor of childhood cancer with a badly disfigured face and a frail body, Grealy struggled with enormous physical difficulties, bouts of depression, and money problems; she was also given to reckless sexual adventures. Early in their friendship, Patchett decided that she would not spend her time worrying about her friend; instead, she would show her love in actions. And she did so for the rest of Grealy's short life, providing shelter, paying bills, giving post-surgery care, cleaning up the messes. After Iowa, their lives took different paths, but their friendship remained strong. Patchett saved Grealy's letters to her and includes generous excerpts that make it easier to understand her commitment to her demanding friend. The letters reveal Grealy's warmth, her captivating intellect, her poet's eye. After her last round of surgery failed, she went from prescription painkillers to street heroin, and her life spiraled downward, but even whenGrealy was most devastated and difficult, Patchett still found her the person she knew best and was most comfortable with, the friend like no other to whom she could speak with "complexity and nuance."A tough and loving tribute, hard to put down, impossible to forget. Agent: Lisa Bankoff/ICM
From the Publisher
More than truth or beauty, it is love” — San Francisco Chronicle
“This is a loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.” — People
“Unforgettable...carefully rendered and breathtaking.” — Chicago Sun-Times
“An inspired duet...riveting.” — New York Times Book Review
“A work every bit as entrancing, daring and smart as her fiction—channels her grief.[into] an electrifying portrait of Grealy, a bravura self-portrait and a stunning and insightful interpretation of an epic friendship...A generous and virtuoso performance.” — Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“This frank, perceptive book can be read in many ways, not only as a story of friendship but also as a young artist’s eye-opening introduction to the wider world.” — New York Times
“If this honest book sends new readers out in search of Grealy’s memoir, Patchett will have served her friend’s memory well.” — USA Today
“In her first nonfiction, novelist Patchett paints a deeply moving portrait of friendship between two talented writers, illuminating the bond between herself and poet Lucy Grealy...a tough and loving tribute, hard to put down, impossible to forget.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Dazzling in its psychological interpretations, piquant in its wit, candid in its self-portraiture, and gracefully balanced between emotion and reason, this is an utterly involving and cathartic elegy that speaks to everyone who would do anything for their soul mate.” — Booklist (starred review)
“[Truth & Beauty] shares many insights into the nature of devotion...This gorgeously written chronicle unfolds as an example of how friendships can contain more passion and affection than any in the romantic realm.” — Publishers Weekly
“...lyrical, lovely...Patchett has preserved her friend’s talent in this book, and provided more evidence of her own.” — BookPage
“{a} loving, clear-sighted portrayal..” — Elle
“A contemporary story of friendship and the writing life at once intense, honest, and heartbreaking. Highly recommended.” — Library Journal (starred review)
“An exquisite account of the close yet painful friendship...This is an intimate look into the lives of two successful writers, and the psychological demands of an extremely close friendship that ultimately ends in tragedy.” — Chicago Tribune
“Patchett’s is a book with a vortex at the center, and it’s magnetic.” — Boston Globe
“The reader mourns not only the loss of Lucy but the loss one feels when the pages of an enthralling book begin to thin and, as if suddenly, there is no more to read.” — Wall Street Journal
“...a moving companion to Grealy’s [Autobiography of a Face].” — The New Yorker
Chicago Sun-Times
Unforgettable...carefully rendered and breathtaking.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A work every bit as entrancing, daring and smart as her fiction—channels her grief.[into] an electrifying portrait of Grealy, a bravura self-portrait and a stunning and insightful interpretation of an epic friendship...A generous and virtuoso performance.
New York Times Book Review
An inspired duet...riveting.
New York Times
This frank, perceptive book can be read in many ways, not only as a story of friendship but also as a young artist’s eye-opening introduction to the wider world.
People
This is a loving testament to the work and reward of the best friendships, the kind where your arms can’t distinguish burden from embrace.
USA Today
If this honest book sends new readers out in search of Grealy’s memoir, Patchett will have served her friend’s memory well.
San Francisco Chronicle
More than truth or beauty, it is love
Booklist (starred review)
Dazzling in its psychological interpretations, piquant in its wit, candid in its self-portraiture, and gracefully balanced between emotion and reason, this is an utterly involving and cathartic elegy that speaks to everyone who would do anything for their soul mate.
Chicago Sun-Times
Unforgettable...carefully rendered and breathtaking.
San Francisco Chronicle
More than truth or beauty, it is love
USA Today
If this honest book sends new readers out in search of Grealy’s memoir, Patchett will have served her friend’s memory well.
Elle
{a} loving, clear-sighted portrayal..
BookPage
...lyrical, lovely...Patchett has preserved her friend’s talent in this book, and provided more evidence of her own.
Joyce Carol Oates—New York Times Book Review
An inspired duet...riveting.
Joyce Carol OatesNew York Times Book Review
An inspired duet...riveting.
New York Times Book Review - Joyce Carol Oates
"An inspired duet...riveting."