Description

Ann Patchett and the late Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after signing up for the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, began a friendship that might be as defining to both of the lives as their work. In Grealy’s critically-acclaimed memoir, Autobiography of a Face, she wrote about losing section of her jaw to childhood cancer, decades of radiation and chemotherapy, and endless reconstructive procedures. In Reality & Beauty, the story isn’t Lucy’s life or Ann’s life, however the areas of their lives they shared. This can be a portrait of unwavering commitment that spans two decades, from the long winters of the Midwest, to surgical wards, to book parties in Ny.