Truth and Beauty a friendship by Ann Patchett

Two friends, one now dead the one living writes about the friendship.

I don't  think I like Lucy, her friend. Ann gives us a selection of Lucy's letters to Ann who she often addresses as 'dear pet' They seem twee, shallow, lacking in reciprocity.

'you will have make do with being my favourite bagel, my favourite blue awning above some great little cafe where the coffee is strong but milky and has real texture to it.'

Why all the poetic objectification? Why 'have to make do?' And why bloody boring coffee?Stuff the texture if I am a drinks unit I want to be a great little Jamaican beach shack which serves 70 proof rum to a pounding reggae beat.

Don't know what to think.We are getting a story told from a point of view.

It would be kinder of Ann to include some of Lucy's Grealy's poetry. It is hard to find but the poem I located on Google was good.

It's a story about a story, I've followed CMs advice and read it from start to finish. It's good enough for that.

And what about the story of Lucy Grealy's face? I've left that behind because Lucy wrote a book called 'the story of my face.' Ann mentions it a lot. Lucy's cancer of her face, it was big, horrible, ever-painful, consuming her energy her money and her confidence. But it is not the only thing happening in this dual story of then and now.

Lucy's phrase in that early letter 'you have do make do with', it echoes down through the book. Ann always had to make do with Lucy's friendship on Lucy's terms. She did. It took two. And now I think Ann's biting back, slanting the story a bit towards Ann. And I don't think either of them was entirely straight with one another. not in Lucy's lifetime, and not now.

It's human, it's what friends do when friendship wears thin and when we are too tired or tied or scared to let go.