She died of a heroin overdose on December 18, 2002, in New York City, at age 39. įollowing her final reconstructive surgery, Grealy became dependent upon her prescribed painkiller, Ox圜ontin, as she had earlier with codeine.

She taught writing at Bennington College and New School University. She published a collection of essays in 2000, As Seen on TV: Provocations. In 1995, the book won Grealy a Whiting Award, given to young writers of exceptional talent. In 1991, she was awarded a Bunting Fellowship at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study, where she completed her memoir. Their friendship is the subject of Patchett's 2004 memoir Truth and Beauty: A Friendship. In Iowa she lived with fellow writer Ann Patchett. She graduated in 1985 and went on to study at the Iowa Writers' Workshop. In her memoir, Autobiography of a Face, Grealy describes her life from the time of her diagnosis and how she weathered the cruelty of schoolmates and others, suffering taunts and stares from strangers.Īt 18, Grealy entered Sarah Lawrence College where she made her first real friends and nurtured her love of poetry. Treatment for this often fatal cancer (Grealy reports an estimated 5% survival rate using therapies available at the time of her diagnosis) led to the removal of her jawbone, and over the following years she had many facial reconstructive surgeries. She was diagnosed at age 9 with a rare form of cancer called Ewing's sarcoma. Grealy was born in Dublin, Ireland, and her family moved to the United States in April 1967, settling in Spring Valley, New York. In a 1994 interview with Charlie Rose conducted right before she rose to the height of her fame, Grealy stated that she considered her book to be primarily about the issue of 'identity.'

This critically acclaimed book describes her childhood and early adolescent experience with cancer of the jaw, which left her with some facial disfigurement. Lucinda Margaret Grealy (J– December 18, 2002) was an Irish-American poet and memoirist who wrote Autobiography of a Face in 1994.

Autobiography of a face