pagesofjulia

I have a lovely book to tell you about today. I’m sorry I took so long to read The Story of Beautiful Girl.

We follow three characters for the course of the book. Lynnie is a beautiful young woman at the beginning, living at “the School” (that is, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded in Pennsylvania) because she is mentally retarded. No one knows that Number Forty-Two’s name is actually Homan; he is deaf and no one around him understands his brand of sign language, so he has landed at the School as well (he thinks of it as the Snare). And Martha is in her seventies, widowed and living alone in the opening scene in which all three lives coincide.

Martha opens the door in a rainstorm to find Lynnie and Homan standing on her stoop cradling a new-born babe. As Lynnie and her baby are both white and Homan is black, Martha assumes he is not its father; but while these questions of race are clear at a glance, it takes her a little longer to observe that her guests are differently abled. She clothes them and they hide their small charge in her attic just as the authorities arrive; Lynnie is tied up and taken back to the School, and Homan disappears into the woods.

Now we follow the three as they lead independent lives. Martha had a baby many years ago who turned out to be “defective” – we never learn the details – and never left the hospital with her; now she gets to start fresh with the newborn that has been entrusted to her. Lynnie goes back to a miserable institution. Homan runs, intending to return and rescue Lynnie but being thwarted, victimized, blown around the country like a leaf; being unable to communicate cripples him at least as surely as any physical disability. Martha leaves her home to hide the baby whose provenance she can’t explain; she moves around, fleeing the possibility of discovery. Eventually she takes on the identity of grandmother to the child she names Julia, and eventually she is able to start a new life and find new joy and happiness with Julia’s help. She finds a way to turn a spotlight on Lynnie’s plight, and the School is closed down. Lynnie gradually grows as a person; with the help of a School caretaker who becomes and remains a friends, she learns to speak again, learns to read and write and carry on a life. But she always looks for Homan, who never stops thinking of her either – his Beautiful Girl.

This is a beautiful love story, and a story of families and parents trying their best. Several relationships are rekindled after years apart (romantic and otherwise). There is also an exposé of institutions like the School, which is heartbreaking and true-to-life. Simon’s bestselling memoir, Riding the Bus with My Sister, chronicles her experience reconnecting with her sister Beth, a mentally retarded woman as well, and her Author’s Note explains her connection to the subject matter and how she went about her research. I enjoyed this brief look into the process.

This is a lovely book. Sad, yes, but also redemptive. I recommend it highly. (And, it fulfills Pennsylvania for me in the ever-present-these-days Where Are You Reading? Challenge. :))

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: misc fiction |