Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett

Norman Rockwell, Doctor and Doll

(October 21) Not what I expected at all. When I first heard about Truth and Beauty, it sounded controversial and exciting. There were boards full of angry readers ranting about Lucy Grealy's life (was she immoral or clinically ill?) and Patchett's entitlement to the story (was she a vulture, an enabler or a true friend?). Then, Clemson University alumni and parents objected to the assignment of this book as required first-year reading, because it was pornographic and encouraged a sordid lifestyle. Patchett said this perception had blindsided her: "if anything, the criticisms of the book had erred on the side of, 'It's too sweet, too gentle.'" Elsewhere, talking about Lucy, Patchett makes it sound as if their friendship was a long litany of difficult, drama-queen moments: "Lucy was hard, she was a challenge. And she pushed us all to our limits... sometimes to our most horrible."

So then I read Truth and Beauty, anticipating a roller-coaster ride of moral challenges, harrowing escapades, deep feeling and intimate glimpses of a fascinating person. It had none of these things. Grealy's life doesn't come across as particularly edgy or lurid, certainly not enough to provoke the passionate denouncements and defenses on the discussion boards. She just sort of slips into heroin use in the last two years of her life, but Patchett is so distant and disapproving at this stage that we don't see any of the actual destructiveness of the addiction. It's a symbolic Bad Thing.

Nor is the book pornographic in any way, and Patchett definitely does not encourage imitation of any of Lucy's racier activities, which are anyway only mildly racy. It's a complete mystery to me what the Clemson U protesters could have found offensive.

It's not sweet, either. It has what should be touching moments here and there, but Patchett never communicates any of what it was she loved about Grealy, even though she states many times that she did love her. I expected Patchett to rise to the challenge of explaining why limit-pushing Lucy was so beloved by so many people, but at best she makes Lucy sound like a quirky pet or doll and at worst she dwells on the behaviours that would make Lucy unappealing. (These amount to nothing more than irresponsibility with money and a habit of jumping unexpectedly into your arms or lap.)

Truth and Beauty is really mostly about Patchett, and about how "slow and steady wins the race," even though the hare steals all the best scenes. It's Patchett’s apology for being dull and stodgy -- she's claiming dull-and-stodgy kept Lucy alive.

So the title “Truth and Beauty” is really kind of vengeful, after all; it's not the reference to Keatsian transcendentalism it promises to be.