My Library


     
Limit search to available items
Limited to: Words in TITLE "Smile"
Record:  

Book Cover
Book
Title Smile : the story of a face / Sarah Ruhl.
Publisher New York : Simon & Schuster, 2021.
Copyright ©2021
Description 241 pages : illustrations, photographs (black and white) ; 22 cm
Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.


LOCATION CALL NUMBER VOL BARCODE LAST CHECKIN STATUS
 WB-Adult Collection  812.6 RUH Nearby on shelf  3 0672 00336 6655 06-16-23  AVAILABLE
BIBLIOGRAPHY Includes bibliographical references (pages [235]-241).
Summary "In this poignant and deeply intimate memoir, Sarah Ruhl chronicles her experience with Bell's palsy after giving birth to twins. At night, I dreamed that I could smile. The smile felt effortless in my dreams, the way it did in my childhood. Happily married and in the flush of hard-earned professional success, with her first play opening on Broadway, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high risk pregnancy and given birth to twins when she discovers the left side of her face entirely paralyzed. Bell's palsy. Ninety percent of Bell's palsy sufferers see spontaneous improvement and full recovery. Like Ruhl's mother. Like Angelina Jolie. But not like Sarah Ruhl. Sarah Ruhl is in the unlucky ten percent. Like Allen Ginsberg. But for a woman, a mother, a wife, and an artist working in the realm of theater, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior, brings significant and specific challenges. So Ruhl begins an intense decade-long search for a cure, while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face--one that, while recognizably her own--is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions. In a series of searing, witty, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, mother, wife, and artist. She details the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of post-partum depression, the joys and trials of marriage and being a playwright and a mother to three tiny children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of difficulty. Brimming with insight, humility, and levity, SMILE is a triumph by one of the leading playwrights in America. It is about loss and reconciliation, perseverance and hope. The Hollywood pitch would be Joan Didion meets Ann Lamott with a little Nora Ephron for good measure"-- Provided by publisher.
Subject Ruhl, Sarah, 1974-
Facial paralysis -- Biography.
Dramatists, American -- 21st century -- Biography.
Genre Autobiographies.
Other title Story of a face
ISBN 9781982150945
Record: