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Smile: The Story of a Face Audiobook, by Sarah Ruhl Play Audiobook Sample

Smile: The Story of a Face Audiobook

Smile: The Story of a Face Audiobook, by Sarah Ruhl Play Audiobook Sample
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Read By: Sarah Ruhl Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Listen Time: at 1.0x Speed 4.33 hours at 1.5x Speed 3.25 hours at 2.0x Speed Release Date: October 2021 Format: Unabridged Audiobook ISBN: 9781797130880

Quick Stats About this Audiobook

Total Audiobook Chapters:

37

Longest Chapter Length:

27:59 minutes

Shortest Chapter Length:

18 seconds

Average Chapter Length:

10:30 minutes

Audiobooks by this Author:

2

Other Audiobooks Written by Sarah Ruhl: > View All...

Publisher Description

The extraordinary story of one woman’s ten-year medical and metaphysical odyssey that brought her physical, creative, emotional, and spiritual healing, by a MacArthur genius and two-time Pulitzer finalist.

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.

Brimming with insight, humility, and levity, Smile is a triumph by one of America’s leading playwrights. It is 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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“I smiled, for sure, but I also swooned and ached and was left with goose-flesh more than once. I adore this book.”

— Mary Louise Parker, New York Times bestselling author

Quotes

  • “This incredibly inspiring story offers hope where it’s least expected.”

    — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
  • “Wise, intimate, and moving…A captivating, insightful memoir.”

    — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

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