truth & beauty, finally
i've been trying to write a post on
anne patchett's book, truth & beauty
about her friendship with lucy grealy
for weeks now.
here are the basics.
lucy grealy was my poetry teacher, briefly
until she dissapeared, leaving vague instructions
with her favorite student, like
"meet before breakfast, drink champagne,
and finish the john ashbery."
she wrote our evaluations,
i read her book, autobiography of a face,
then when i returned to school,
she was dead, just like that.
later, other people i knew briefly,
were dead, just like that,
one after another.
reading about lucy the first time was invasive.
i didn't know how i would look her in the eye.
me, a stupid freshman, party to her childhood memories,
her sex life, her ruthless self-examination.
it didn't seem fair.
reading about her the second time
was exponentially more invasive.
i didn't read truth & beauty, because i wanted
to read what everyone had described as an excellent book.
i wanted to know everything i could about lucy.
i wanted all the details, her intimate moments
set down on paper by her best friend.
because when the other people
i kind of knew died, i was lost
in the heirarchy of grief.
you can't "get to know"
somebody after they're dead.
even though that's all i wanted,
suddenly, to get to know these people.
because of one fact, death,
i knew it was no longer my right.
reading this book i learned a lot about lucy,
just has i had expected,
and i felt really creepy, nosing around,
just as i had expected,
but at least it gave some closure to,
the strange guilt and tension leftover
from mourning for people i'd hardly known.
as a consequence, i felt extra super creepy
when anne patchett wrote about her disgust
for readers who use lucy's writing
and her life, as a sort of cathartic
one-size-fits-all narrative
of their own suffering,
as self-help.
whoops.
despite the cringeiness of the whole thing,
the book also made me want to be
anne patchett when i grow up.
first, because of her writing.
it isn't effortlessly lyrical.
it is the work of a skilled
and practiced writer
struggling to say something
both honest and tender
about somebody she loved.
more importantly, i want to be her
because of the kind of friend she is.
i think i'm drawn to her so much because
i'm in a very 'esther' mood lately.
she's a fierce and practical sidekick,
ready to defend your artful memior
against the bourgeoisie self-pity
that would make it into a
protracted tabloid feature,
ready to organize your closets, your unopened mail,
to chaperone the crowds at your hospital bed.
"I could write a whole book about you," I said, and laughed.
posted by self_invasion | 8:17 PM
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