Autobiography of a Face

25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die

Browse all of the exceptional memoirs that made our list.

Autobiography of a Face is the beautiful, heartbreaking, harrowing memoir of Lucy Grealy, an incredibly insightful, articulate woman who, at age nine, lost part of her jaw to cancer. Through diagnosis, treatment, surgery, struggles with her disfigurement, alienation, and numerous agonizing, less-than-successful reconstructive surgeries, Grealy details her experience without sentimentality or self-pity. It’s a book about pain and struggle, but more than this, it’s a testament to the human will and to the beauty of acceptance and coming into one’s own. Recommended By Gigi L., Powells.com

This powerful memoir is about the premium we put on beauty and on a woman's face in particular. It took Lucy Grealy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood cancer and surgery that left her jaw disfigured. As a young girl, she absorbed the searing pain of peer rejection and the paralyzing fear of never being loved.

“Engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of [Grealy's] own wit and style and class." Washington Post Book World

“This is a young woman’s first book, the story of her own life, and both book and life are unforgettable.” New York Times

"Diagnosed at age nine with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer that severely disfigured her face, Grealy lost half her jaw, recovered after two and half years of chemotherapy and radiation, then underwent plastic surgery over the next 20 years to reconstruct her jaw. This harrowing, lyrical autobiographical memoir, which grew out of an award-winning article published in Harper's in 1993, is a striking meditation on the distorting effects of our culture's preoccupation with physical beauty. Extremely self-conscious and shy, Grealy endured insults and ostracism as a teenager in Spring Valley, N.Y. At Sarah Lawrence College in the mid-1980s, she discovered poetry as a vehicle for her pent-up emotions. During graduate school at the University of Iowa, she had a series of unsatisfying sexual affairs, hoping to prove she was lovable. No longer eligible for medical coverage, she moved to London to take advantage of Britain's socialized medicine, and underwent a 13-hour operation in Scotland. Grealy now lives in New York City. Her discovery that true beauty lies within makes this a wise and healing book. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly

A New York Times Notable Book

"This is a young woman's first book, the story of her own life, and both book and life are unforgettable." --New York Times

"Engaging and engrossing, a story of grace as well as cruelty, and a demonstration of Grealy's] own wit and style and class."--Washington Post Book World


This powerful memoir is about the premium we put on beauty and on a woman's face in particular. It took Lucy Grealy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood cancer and surgery that left her jaw disfigured. As a young girl, she absorbed the searing pain of peer rejection and the paralyzing fear of never being loved.

Lucy Grealy (1963−2002), an award-winning poet, attended the Iowa Writer's Workshop. She was a fellow at the Bunting Institute of Radcliffe and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and a guest of the Yaddo Corporation. Her article for Harper's, "Mirrorings," on which Autobiography of a Face was based, received the National Magazine Award.