Autobiography Of A Face

Book excerpt: A New York Times Notable Book. This "harrowing, lyrical autobiographical memoir . . . is a striking meditation on the distorting effects of our culture's preoccupation with physical beauty" (Publishers Weekly). It took Lucy Grealy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood cancer and surgery that left her jaw disfigured. As a young girl, she absorbed the searing pain of peer rejection and the paralyzing fear of never being loved. “This is a young woman’s first book, the story of her own life, and both book and life are unforgettable.”??—??New York Times “Engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of [Grealy's] own wit and style and class."??—??Washington Post Book World