I ran into a problem while reading Autobiography of a Face. Besides I just said I was swearing off Irish authors, and Grealy was from Ireland, I just finished her book, As Seen on TV and had listened to a few chapters of Patchett’s Truth & Beauty. Too much Lucy Grealy and all of it sounds the same. In fact it all sounds the same because in many, many cases the stories were told in virtually the same way in all three books.
Once I resigned myself with that, sort of accepted it the way you accept the re-telling of family stories over and over again, I enjoyed reading the book. I’m sorry Grealy died, particularly the way she died. Very sad and melodramatic, the latter of which she probably appreciates – wherever she is.
I wonder what all of those people who went to school with her think about her now – what they think about themselves – what they say about Lucy to their children.