02218cam a2200313 i 4500 513728413 TxAuBib 20211029120000.0 210625s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2021031063 9781982150945 HRD 27.00 1982150947 HRD 27.00 TxAuBib rda Ruhl, Sarah, 1974- Smile [BOOK] : the story of a face / Sarah Ruhl. First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2021. 241 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references. 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 see spontaneous improvement and experience a full recovery. Like Ruhl’s own mother. But Sarah is in the unlucky ten percent. And for a woman, wife, mother, and artist working in 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 piercing, witty, and lucid meditations, Ruhl chronicles her journey as a patient, wife, mother, and artist. 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 mom to three small children, and the desire for a resilient spiritual life in the face of illness. Provided by publisher. 20211029. Ruhl, Sarah 1974- Facial paralysis Biography. Dramatists, American 21st century Biography. Autobiographies.