This Is the Story of a Happy Marriage by Ann Patchett

Author:Ann Patchett
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-11-07T05:00:00+00:00

Fact vs. Fiction

The Miami University of Ohio Convocation Address of 2005

I’VE MADE A point of not giving talks about Truth & Beauty. When it was first published, I didn’t go on a book tour or give interviews the way I would have with a novel. It’s not that I mind talking about Lucy, or that it upsets me; it doesn’t. In fact, I love to talk about Lucy. But I didn’t want to go around telling the same stories over and over again until they felt worn-out and common, like part of a routine you use to sell books. I decided to come to Miami of Ohio because I was so glad that you wanted to read our two books together. I’ve always pictured them traveling as a pair, the same way Lucy and I were a pair. Still, I can’t help but think how nice it would be if Lucy were around to do the speaking instead of me. It would be a better arrangement, since writing made Lucy especially miserable. In the best of all possible worlds, I would write the book and she could go out and give all the talks. She adored being up onstage. Lucy would accept any invitation to speak for the price of a plane ticket. She had a remarkable ability to connect to people. Everywhere she went people loved her and she was able to soak up all that love. Then again, she often missed her flights or forgot what time she was supposed to show up to give a lecture once she had arrived. I’m sorry to say you’ve gotten the less colorful, more reliable member of the team, which I suppose is a mixed blessing. Had I been the one to die first I feel certain that Lucy would have wanted to write a book about me. I’m just not entirely sure she would have gotten around to it.

I knew Lucy for years before she knew me. The first time I saw her was the first day of our freshman year at college. I don’t remember any one person telling me her story but still I knew it, the same way you know intimate details about the lives of movie stars. You don’t go looking for them, they just seem to enter your consciousness by osmosis. Lucy had had cancer as a child. She had lost half her jaw. She was one of the first children to have chemotherapy. She had very nearly died. I watched her from a distance, curious but not wanting to intrude. During those first few weeks of classes she was often alone, a tiny thing with her head bent down to hide her disfigurement beneath a long curtain of hair, but very quickly she became the center of attention. She cut her hair off. She moved in the middle of the most popular students, older students who asked for her opinions and laughed at her jokes. Even though part of her face was missing, I thought she was glamorous.

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