Smile The story of a face

Sarah Ruhl, 1974-

Book - 2021

"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"--

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Subjects
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Simon & Schuster 2021.
Language
English
Main Author
Sarah Ruhl, 1974- (author)
Edition
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition
Physical Description
241 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN
9781982150945
  • 1. Twins
  • 2. Opening Night
  • 3. Bed Rest
  • 4. The Itch
  • 5. Bell's Palsy
  • 6. Sir Charles Bell and the Greeks
  • 7. The NICU
  • 8. A Brief Digression on My Catholic God
  • 9. The NICU, Continued
  • 10. Home
  • 11. Smile!
  • 12. Actors and Mothers
  • 13. The Duchenne
  • 14. Still Face and the Tony Awards
  • 15. The Mono, Lisa and Illness as Metaphor
  • 16. Three Children Under the Age of Five and Three Kinds of Vomit
  • 17. AH the Crying Mashas and the Concept of a Good Side
  • 18. Show Me What You've Got
  • 19. The Observer and the Observed
  • 20. Celiac Disease, or I Remember Bagels
  • 21. Childhood Illness and the Symmetry of Siblings
  • 22. Can You Have Postpartum Depression Two Years After Having Babies?
  • 23. Refuge
  • 24. I Can Only Imagine
  • 25. Lizard Eye, or Kill the Ingenue
  • 26. Hermione, the Frozen Statue
  • 27. The Neurosurgeon Who Liked Irishwomen
  • 28. The Good Doctor and Gratitude
  • 29. Ding-Dong, Ding-Dong, or Grow Accustomed to Your Face
  • 30. Mirror Neurons and Narcissus
  • 31. The Fortune Cookie
  • 32. A Woman Slowly Gets Better
  • Acknowledgments
  • Resources and Sources
Review by Booklist Review

Best known as a mega award-winning playwright, Ruhl (44 Poems for You, 2020) is also a MacArthur "Genius," Yale professor, poet, and author. Her memoir is an utter gift--no superlatives are enough; no review can communicate its resonating efficacy. Just after Ruhl found out she was having twins, she met her husband for lunch and ended their meal with a prescient fortune cookie: "Deliver that what is inside you, and it will save your life." Parsing its full meaning would require a decade. That fall, the day after her first Broadway opening, breakthrough bleeding required bed rest; "boredom and entropy" ensued. Complications didn't stop, including a supremely rare disease that caused early labor. Both children came out "perfect," but the next day, the left side of Ruhl's face fell down: "eyebrow, fallen; eyelid, fallen; lip fallen, frozen, immovable." Bell's Palsy was diagnosed, and although 95 percent got better in a year, Ruhl would have to navigate 10 years of seemingly endless specialists, therapists, and miracle workers to smile again. Recognizing her own self becomes a stupendous, raw, funny, piercing, brilliant journey. Ciphering her work for the stage, Ruhl makes sure her words on the page are part spotlighted monologue, part family album, part BFF confession, part unguarded reveals. Indeed, audiences are guaranteed a standing-ovation-worthy production.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In this stunning work, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Ruhl (44 Poems for You) reflects on her long and arduous battle with Bell's palsy after giving birth to twins. For about 85% of people, Bell's palsy, a weakness in facial muscles, lasts for three months or less, yet for an unlucky 5%, it can be long-term. For Ruhl, the condition has persisted for more than a decade. In a series of insightful and witty essays, she provides an unvarnished look at coming to terms with a face that's paralyzed on one side ("Kissing with one eye open isn't exactly a peril, but it is strange"); the postpartum depression she dealt with after a complicated pregnancy; and a celiac disease diagnosis that made her give up her beloved bagels. Ruhl juggled all this while simultaneously working in theater and mothering three children under the age of five with her husband. "My years of writing plays tells me that a story requires an apotheosis, a sudden transformation," she muses. "But my story has been so slow... the nature of the chronic, which resists plot and epiphany." As she recounts learning to find joy in small things--such as regaining the ability to blink--Ruhl proves that even life at its most mundane can be fascinating. This incredibly inspiring story offers hope where it's least expected. (Oct.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

Pulitzer Prize and Tony-nominated playwright Ruhl (The Clean House) takes readers behind the scenes in this intimate memoir about developing Bell's palsy, which partially paralyzed her face, after pregnancy complications. Much of the book is about questioning societal expectations for the beauty and expressiveness of a woman's face. Will Ruhl's small children understand their mother's motives? Will the male gaze recategorize her as a difficult or cold woman? Will every act require a double consciousness of how one feels versus how they may be perceived? She narrates a journey of healing and self-acceptance in elegant chapters that evoke a monologue or one-act play, and brings readers into the scene while also giving them a front-row seat to her inner dialogue. Readers will quickly accept Ruhl as she is but also appreciate the journey it takes for Ruhl to accept herself. Family photos throughout add a personal touch. VERDICT A moving, insightful account that will appeal to many readers, especially those who like memoir. It will particularly engage readers interested in reflections on women in society or self-acceptance, and, of course, fans of Ruhl's plays.--Kelly Karst, California Inst. of Integral Studies, San Francisco

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A diligent search for self through years of affliction. Award-winning playwright Ruhl, a MacArthur fellow and two-time Pulitzer finalist, was pregnant when she opened a fortune cookie that contained a cryptic message: "Deliver that what is inside you, and it will save your life." What was inside her turned out to be much more than fraternal twins. In a wise, intimate, and moving memoir, the author recounts a decade of illness, recovery, and self-transformation that followed her pregnancy. It began the day after delivering the twins, when the left side of her face became paralyzed; she had developed Bell's palsy, a rare condition of nerve damage. She could not blink her left eye and, equally devastating, she could not smile. Although most people recover from Bell's palsy within months, Ruhl's persisted, causing not only physical discomforts--she had trouble eating and enunciating--but psychological and emotional distress. "Is the self the face?" she wondered as she became increasingly depressed at the facial asymmetry that seemed to her so "ugly." Although she had considered herself a person of little vanity, now she "veered dangerously close to self-pity" and also self-blame for not getting better. Ruhl engagingly reports on her interactions with a host of therapists and medical practitioners--some brusque and dismissive, some caring and helpful; she even sought advice from a Tibetan lama. Sometimes, she admits, "I felt like anatomy rather than a whole." A positive test for celiac disease helped to explain why nerve growth was inhibited, but it still took years before she could produce a semblance of a smile. Within her chronicle of illness, the author deftly weaves memories of her father; thoughts about motherhood, friendship, writing; and perceptive reflections about the meaning of smiling, especially for women. "I thought I could not truly reenter the world until I could smile again," she writes; "and yet, how could I be happy enough to smile again when I couldn't reenter the world?" A captivating, insightful memoir. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Chapter 1: TwinsCHAPTER 1 Twins Ten years ago, my smile walked off my face, and wandered out in the world. This is the story of my asking it to come back. This is a story of how I learned to make my way when my body stopped obeying my heart. But this story begins with hope--the very particular hope of a birth to come. I was lying down in a dressing gown, cold gel on my belly, waiting as the lab technician looked for a heartbeat. I already had a three-year-old girl, and was expecting my second child. I was also expecting to have a play I'd written to be performed on Broadway in five months, and was slightly nervous about the potential collision of two kinds of abundance. Suddenly the lab technician pointed to the screen and said, "Do you know what that is?" "No," I said. I flashed on the ultrasound I'd had before miscarrying my second pregnancy, when the obstetrician had said the fetus looked not quite right and probably wouldn't last. "Don't, like, go out and get drunk, though," she had said in a tone not quite teasing, "just in case it's viable." "Uh, not to worry," I had said, wondering what gave her the impression that I would go out and get wasted that weekend. So this time, I feared the worst as I lay there, nervous, while the lab technician squinted at a screen I could not see. "Look!" she said, pointing. There was movement, a heart beating, it seemed to me. A heartbeat, that's good , I thought, but what was wrong? Why was her brow furrowed? Was she alarmed, or, wait, was she pleased? "Did you use fertility treatments?" she asked. "No," I said. "Well," she said, "you have twins!" "Oh!" I said. "Do twins run in your family?" "No," I said. My mind raced to keep up with my body. "You can go to the waiting room," she said. "I'll give you a list of new providers. We can no longer be your ob-gyn because your pregnancy is now considered high-risk." This was a great deal to absorb--that I had two babies inside me and was also now considered high-risk, so much so that they wanted to get me out of their SoHo office as soon as possible before I got preeclampsia and sued them. I got dressed. I happened to be alone for this appointment; I had planned to meet my husband afterwards for lunch, where we would celebrate if there was a heartbeat, or commiserate if there was not. Now I was sorry I'd come alone. I wanted to tell my husband, Tony, the news immediately, but it also seemed strange to reveal such big tidings over the phone. So I texted him: "Meet me at Gramercy Tavern instead of at Rice." "Twins?" he texted back. Gramercy Tavern was closed for lunch. Tony and I went to Rice, as planned. We were both in shock; Tony, on top of the shock, evinced buoyancy, elation. Coming from a family of three siblings, he'd always wanted three. Being from a family of two, I'd settled on two. I'd even, at one point, settled on one, when I read in an Alice Walker essay that women writers should only have one child if they hoped to remain writers. "With one child you can move," wrote Walker. "With more than one you're a sitting duck." At lunch, Tony and I talked about how my miscarried child had wandered back, not to be excluded from this birth. We talked about how we would manage with three. I told Tony my fears: that my body could not contain this much abundance and that I'd never write again. He said he had faith in my body and mind. At the end of the meal, I got a fortune cookie. I cracked it open. It read: "Deliver what is inside you, and it will save your life." Everyone seemed jubilant about the news, but I was overwhelmed. I found myself feeling vaguely sick when thumbing through books about multiples in the pregnancy section of the bookstore. There were pictures of breastfeeding triplets, and I didn't want to know about all that. It struck me as grotesque, as though I had once been a woman but was now hurtling towards becoming full mammal, all breasts and logistics. I worried that I wouldn't be able to give enough attention to my three-year-old, Anna. I feared that my body wouldn't tolerate two babies; I feared that my writing wouldn't survive three children. I called my mother with the news. I gave off a scent of "How can this have happened?" My mother paused, then said, "Well, your great-aunt Laura had twins." "Why didn't I know?" "They were stillborn," she said. Twins run on the mother's side, skipping a generation. Poor great-aunt Laura, whose heartbreak I never knew. Somewhere in Iowa in the 1950s she buried two babies on the prairie and never spoke of it. I imagined their graves on some grassy plain. I wondered whether Laura gave them names; Laura was dead so I couldn't ask her. The ghosts of my great-aunt Laura's babies would haunt me for the rest of the pregnancy. When I told friends I was having twins, I was as apt to cry as to laugh. My dear friend Kathleen, a playwright, from a large Irish Catholic family, comforted me, saying, "I love big families. Small families are so boring in comparison." Kathleen had already raised two daughters, and had shown me all the ropes, talking me through potty training and tantrums. Her most comforting phrase was, "I'm sure it's just a stage." At this seismic news she said quite simply, "I'll help you." And I knew she would. Three months pregnant and terrified, I visited my former playwriting teacher Paula Vogel and her wife, Anne Fausto Sterling, an eminent feminist biologist, on Cape Cod. They said, come, we'll grill fish, we'll take care of you. Paula is the reason I write plays. She has the ferocity of a general in battle, the joy and humor of a street performer, and the tenderness of a mother. That week, she entertained Anna with tissues she made into a puppet. Anna laughed with joy. I was quiet. Paula observed me. "What's wrong?" she asked. She gave me her conjuring, summoning look. "Will I ever write again?" I asked her. "Yes, you will," she promised. I looked out at the ocean. This was the same view Paula had shown me years ago, when she'd invited her graduate students out to her Cape Cod home, entreated us to look out the window, and say to ourselves a mantra-- This is what playwriting can buy . My first Broadway play was supposed to go into rehearsal that fall; I was not only pregnant, I was extra pregnant. What luck, what abundance. All this bounty, why am I not happy? I thought. And my mind went back to the fortune cookie: "Deliver what is inside you, and it will save your life." Did it mean that my life was imperiled, and if I didn't deliver the babies speedily, the pregnancy itself would kill me? Or did it mean something more metaphysical? All through the pregnancy I thought, How could my children possibly save my life? It would take me a decade to find out. Excerpted from Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.