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Truth & Beauty
A Friendship
by Ann Patchett
In Truth & Beauty, her frank and startlingly intimate first work of nonfiction, Ann Patchett shines a fresh, revealing light on the world of women's friendships and shows us what it means to stand together. Ann Patchett and Lucy Grealy met in college in 1981, and, after enrolling in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, began a friendship that would be as defining to both of their lives as their work was. [HarperCollins]
HarperCollins Publishers, 257 pages
05/11/2004
$23.95
ISBN: 0060572140
Nonfiction
Biographies & Memoirs
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Booklist Donna Seaman
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. [1 Mar 2004, p.1098]
Kirkus Reviews
A tough and loving tribute, hard to put down, impossible to forget.
Library Journal Pam Kingsbury
A contemporary story of friendship and the writing life at once intense, honest, and heartbreaking. [15 May 2004, p.85]
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
While Grealy is the glittering, tragic star, it is Patchett's voice -- perfectly modulated, lucid, and steady -- that makes it both true and beautiful.
Houston Chronicle Lisa Jennifer Selzman
Patchett's achievement is that she memorializes her friend without idealizing her.
USA Today Jocelyn McClurg
Patchett has written lyrical fiction, and while Truth & Beauty is highly readable, the language rarely rises to the poetic heights of Grealy's autobiography.
Wall Street Journal Melanie Thernstrom
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.
Washington Post Lisa Zeidner
The most interesting sections of Truth & Beauty confront that old subject, the relationship of suffering to art. [13 June 2004, p.T12]
TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Lucy Daniel
Equal parts personal catharsis and work of art, Ann Patchett's beautifully executed book is sincerely inscribed with Lucy's inordinate value as a friend, and pays tribute to her as a fellow writer.
Publishers Weekly
This gorgeously written chronicle unfolds as an example of how friendships can contain more passion and affection than any in the romantic realm.
San Francisco Chronicle Heller McAlpin
More than truth or beauty, it is love -- a passionate, stubborn, at times irrational attachment -- that Patchett eloquently captures in this heartbreaking eulogy.
The New York Times Janet Maslin
Ms. Patchett is not one for sweeping generalizations. The beauty of this book is in the details, and in the anecdotes so colorfully recalled.
The New York Times Book Review Joyce Carol Oates
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.
Chicago Sun-Times Elisabeth Egan
Equal parts page-turner and elegy.
Chicago Tribune Conan Putnam
Truth & Beauty provides glimpses of Grealy letting her guard down to obsess with Ann over her desire to be beautiful, but why she was never able to free herself of it remains a mystery.
Boston Globe Karen Campbell
Sometimes the writing style is slightly over-romanticized, especially Patchett's unabashedly loving descriptions of her friend. However, most of Truth and Beauty is searingly direct. With wisdom, wit, and grace, Patchett recalls and honors an exceptional life.
The New Yorker
If Patchett's book doesn't quite stand on its own, it is a moving companion to Grealy's.
 The average user rating for this book is 9.3 (out of 10) based on 3 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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