<p>the Author Of <i>bel Canto</i> - Winner Of The Pen/faulkner Award, The Orange Prize And Long-running <i>new York Times</i> Bestseller - Turns To Nonfiction In A Moving Chronicle Of Her Decades-long Friendship With The Critically Acclaimed And Recently Deceased Author, Lucy Grealy.<p>what Happens When The Person Who Is Your Family Is Someone You Aren't Bound To By Blood? What Happens When That Person Is Not Your Lover, But Your Best Friend? In Her Frank And Startlingly Intimate First Work Of Nonfiction, <i>truth & Beauty</i>, Ann Patchett Shines Light On The Little-explored World Of Women's Friendships And Shows Us What It Means To Stand Together.<p>ann Patchett And Lucy Grealy Met In College In 1981, And After Enrolling In The Iowa Writer's Workshop Began A Friendship That Would Be As Defining To Both Of Their Lives As Their Work. In Her Critically Acclaimed Memoir, <i>autobiography Of A Face</i>, Lucy Grealy Wrote About The First Half Of Her Life. In <i>truth & Beauty</i>,...</p> <h3>the New York Times Book Review</h3> <p><i>truth & Beauty</i> Is A Harrowing Document, Composed In A Spare, Forthright Style Very Different From The Elegant Artifice Of Patchett's Best-known Novels...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 <i>truth & Beauty</i> That Is Uplifting, A Testament To The Perennial Idealism And Optimism Of The Young.&#151;<i>joyce Carol Oates</i></p>