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The Resource Autobiography of a face, Lucy Grealy

Autobiography of a face, Lucy Grealy

Creator
Summary
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect. "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."
Language
eng
Work
Publication
Edition
1st Perennial ed.
Extent
236 p.
Contents
  • Luck
  • Petting zoo
  • The Tao of laugh-in
  • Fear itself
  • Life on earth
  • Door number two
  • Masks
  • Truth and beauty
  • World of unknowing
  • The habits of self-consciousness
  • Cool
  • Mirrors
Isbn
9780060569662
Instance
Label
Autobiography of a face
Title
Autobiography of a face
Statement of responsibility
Lucy Grealy
Creator
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
At age nine, Lucy Grealy was diagnosed with a potentially terminal cancer. When she returned to school with a third of her jaw removed, she faced the cruel taunts of classmates. In this strikingly candid memoir, Grealy tells her story of great suffering and remarkable strength without sentimentality and with considerable wit. Vividly portraying the pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special, Grealy captures with unique insight what it is like as a child and young adult to be torn between two warring impulses: to feel that more than anything else we want to be loved for who we are, while wishing desperately and secretly to be perfect. "I spent five years of my life being treated for cancer, but since then I've spent fifteen years being treated for nothing other than looking different from everyone else. It was the pain from that, from feeling ugly, that I always viewed as the great tragedy of my life. The fact that I had cancer seemed minor in comparison."
Summary
The author, who endured a severely disfiguring cancer in childhood, offers a meditation on the pain, and healing she has endured, searching through a culture obsessed with physical beauty for love, acceptance, and inner peace
Tone
Writing style
Award
Booklist Editors' Choice, 1994.
http://library.link/vocab/ext/novelist/bookUI
162337
Cataloging source
STA
Dewey number
155.916
Index
no index present
LC call number
RD661.G74
LC item number
A3 2003
http://library.link/vocab/ext/novelist/lexile
1110
Literary form
non fiction
Nature of contents
abstracts summaries
http://library.link/vocab/resourcePreferred
True
Target audience
adult
Label
Autobiography of a face, Lucy Grealy
Instantiates
Publication
Contents
Luck -- Petting zoo -- The Tao of laugh-in -- Fear itself -- Life on earth -- Door number two -- Masks -- Truth and beauty -- World of unknowing -- The habits of self-consciousness -- Cool -- Mirrors
Control code
2274998
Dimensions
21 cm.
Edition
1st Perennial ed.
Extent
236 p.
Isbn
9780060569662
System control number
  • (OCoLC)ocm51874121
  • (OCoLC)51874121
Label
Autobiography of a face, Lucy Grealy
Publication
Contents
Luck -- Petting zoo -- The Tao of laugh-in -- Fear itself -- Life on earth -- Door number two -- Masks -- Truth and beauty -- World of unknowing -- The habits of self-consciousness -- Cool -- Mirrors
Control code
2274998
Dimensions
21 cm.
Edition
1st Perennial ed.
Extent
236 p.
Isbn
9780060569662
System control number
  • (OCoLC)ocm51874121
  • (OCoLC)51874121

Subject

Genre

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Library Locations

    • Statesboro-Bulloch County LibraryBorrow it
      124 S Main Street, Statesboro, GA, 30458-5246, US
      32.446201 -81.783699

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