Smile: The Story of a Face by Sarah Ruhl; 2021. Hardcover.

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. But Sarah Ruhl is in the unlucky ten percent. 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 of 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.