Smile

The Story of a Face

Sarah Ruhl

• Publisher: S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781982150969
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

* A People Best Book of the Year * Time and The Washington Post 's Most Anticipated List * Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence * From the MacArthur genius, two-time Pulitzer Prize finalist, and playwright, this "captivating, insightful memoir" ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review) is "a beautiful meditation on identity and how we see ourselves" ( Real Simple ). With a play opening on Broadway, and every reason to smile, Sarah Ruhl has just survived a high-risk pregnancy when she discovers the left side of her face is completely paralyzed. She is assured that 90 percent of Bell's palsy patients experience a full recovery—like Ruhl's own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in 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 piercing, profound, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. She explores the struggle of a body yearning to match its inner landscape, the pain of postpartum depression, the story of a marriage, being a playwright and working mom to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.An intimate and "stunning" ( Publishers Weekly, starred review) examination of loss and reconciliation, "Ruhl reminds us that a smile is not just a smile but a vital form of communication, of bonding, of what makes us human" ( The Washington Post ). Brimming with insight, humility, and levity, Smile is a triumph by one of America's leading playwrights.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Chapter 1: Twins
• Chapter 2: Opening Night
• Chapter 3: Bed Rest
• Chapter 4: The Itch
• Chapter 5: Bell’s Palsy
• Chapter 6: Sir Charles Bell and the Greeks
• Chapter 7: The NICU
• Chapter 8: A Brief Digression on My Catholic God
• Chapter 9: The NICU, Continued
• Chapter 10: Home
• Chapter 11: Smile!
• Chapter 12: Actors and Mothers
• Chapter 13: The Duchenne
• Chapter 14: Still Face and the Tony Awards
• Chapter 15: The ‘Mona Lisa’ and Illness as Metaphor
• Chapter 16: Three Children Under the Age of Five and Three Kinds of Vomit
• Chapter 17: All the Crying Mashas and the Concept of a Good Side
• Chapter 18: Show Me What You’ve Got
• Chapter 19: The Observer and the Observed
• Chapter 20: Celiac Disease, or I Remember Bagels
• Chapter 21: Childhood Illness and the Symmetry of Siblings
• Chapter 22: Can You Have Postpartum Depression Two Years After Having Babies?
• Chapter 23: Refuge
• Chapter 24: I Can Only Imagine
• Chapter 25: Lizard Eye, or Kill the Ingenue
• Chapter 26: Hermione, the Frozen Statue
• Chapter 27: The Neurosurgeon Who Liked Irishwomen
• Chapter 28: The Good Doctor and Gratitude
• Chapter 29: Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong, or Grow Accustomed to Your Face
• Chapter 30: Mirror Neurons and Narcissus
• Chapter 31: The Fortune Cookie
• Chapter 32: A Woman Slowly Gets Better
• Acknowledgments
• Resources and Sources
• About the Author
• Copyright