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Imprint
- W&N
- W&N
Runtime
6hr 0m
Memoirs, Illness & addiction: social aspects, Women's health, Coping with illness & specific conditions
In this celebrated memoir and exploration of identity, cancer transforms the author's face, childhood, and the rest of her life
'Both book and life are unforgettable' New York Times
'Read it twice and then read it again' Ann Patchett
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with cancer.
When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. It took her twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty years of reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance.
In this lyrical and strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. She captures what it is like as a child and a young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect.
Praise for Autobiography of a Face
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Grealy has turned her misfortune into a book that is engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of her own wit and style and class - Washtington Post Book World
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So many memoirs make you feel that you've been sealed up inside a wall with a monomaniac. A really good one, like Autobiography of a Face, makes you feel there is more to ask and learn. You are not just seeing a writer; you are not trying to see yourself. You are seeing the world in a different way
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Autobiography of a Face is about that most wrenching of subjects - a child's suffering - but also moral courage, the hard battle of growing up and the unfolding of a writer's soul. An honest, deeply moving book
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