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Author Ruhl, Sarah, 1974- author.

Title Smile : the story of a face / Sarah Ruhl.

Publication Info. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2021.
©2021

Copies

Location Call No. Status
 Avon Free Public Library - Adult Department  92 RUHL    Check Shelf
 Berlin-Peck Memorial Library - Biographies  92 BIOGRAPHY RUHL    Check Shelf
 Canton Public Library - Adult Department  BIO RUHL    Check Shelf
 Cheshire Public Library - Adult Department Lower Level  BIOGRAPHY RUHL    Check Shelf
 Cromwell-Belden Public Library - Adult Department  B RUHL S.    Check Shelf
 Enfield, Main Library - Biographies  B RUHL    Check Shelf
 Farmington, Main Library - Adult Department  B RUHL SARAH    Check Shelf
 Glastonbury, Welles-Turner Memorial Library - Adult Department  BIO RUHL    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Main Library - Non Fiction  B RUHL, SARAH    Check Shelf
 Manchester, Whiton Branch - Non Fiction  B RUHL, SARAH    Check Shelf

Edition First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.
Description 241 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
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 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.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Women.
BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Medical (incl. Patients).
Ruhl, Sarah, 1974- (OCoLC)fst01928697
Dramatists, American. (OCoLC)fst00897556
Facial paralysis. (OCoLC)fst00919601
Chronological Term 2000-2099
Genre/Form Autobiographies. (OCoLC)fst01919894
Biographies. (OCoLC)fst01919896
Autobiographies.
ISBN 9781982150945 (hardcover)
1982150947 (hardcover)
9781982150969 (ebook)
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