The extraordinary story of one woman's ten-year odyssey that brought her physical, creative, emotional, and spiritual healing.
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 her own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in theatre, the paralysis and the disconnect between the interior and exterior brings significant and specific challenges. So she begins an intense decade-long search for a cure while simultaneously grappling with the reality of her new face - one that, while recognisably her own, is incapable of accurately communicating feelings or intentions.
Smile is Ruhl's piercing, witty, lucid chronicle of her journey. 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 mother to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness.
Brimming with insight, humility, warmth and humour, Smile is a triumph: an intimate examination of loss and reconciliation, and above all else, the importance of perseverance and hope in the face of adversity.
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- Authors:
- Ruhl, Sarah
- Year Published:
- 2022
- Country of Publication:
- United Kingdom
- Format:
- Hardback
- ISBN:
- 9781847926326
- Number of Pages:
- 256
- Publication Date:
- 20/01/2022
- Publisher:
- Vintage Publishing
- Place of Publication:
- London
- Language:
- English
- SKU:
- 9781847926326