Serious Reads
What’s the most serious book you’ve read recently?
I haven’t been reading as much as I’d want to lately. However, before this literature drought, I’ve had the chance to read Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy. It’s largely about her battle, not only with cancer, but also with rejection because of the disfigurement of her face caused by her condition.
The following is from Publisher’s Weekly:
Diagnosed at age nine with Ewing’s sarcoma, a cancer that severely disfigured her face, Grealy lost half her jaw, recovered after two and half years of chemotherapy and radiation, then underwent plastic surgery over the next 20 years to reconstruct her jaw. This harrowing, lyrical autobiographical memoir, which grew out of an award-winning article published in Harper’s in 1993, is a striking meditation on the distorting effects of our culture’s preoccupation with physical beauty. Extremely self-conscious and shy, Grealy endured insults and ostracism as a teenager in Spring Valley, N.Y. At Sarah Lawrence College in the mid-1980s, she discovered poetry as a vehicle for her pent-up emotions. During graduate school at the University of Iowa, she had a series of unsatisfying sexual affairs, hoping to prove she was lovable. No longer eligible for medical coverage, she moved to London to take advantage of Britain’s socialized medicine, and underwent a 13-hour operation in Scotland. Grealy now lives in New York City. Her discovery that true beauty lies within makes this a wise and healing book.
To me this hits pretty close to home, especially since a member of my family has also been battling Mesothelioma cancer for a few years now and we acknowledge both his suffering and his strength during these times. I would recommend this read to everyone.
MrsWorkingGirl :: Aug.08.2009 :: Booking Thru Thurs :: No Comments »
