Levi did kill himself after all, but it interests me greatly precisely because I am at a total loss to describe how I am different, how what I know now differs from what I knew then. This is a language problem: the disparity between the two selves, between the two sets of truths, is very real and clear to me, yet my ability to control this knowledge in any sort of narrative or verbal way veers off constantly.
--From Ann Patchett's Truth and Beatuy, an excerpt from Lucy's letter to Ann
Lucy comes to believe that there are some people out there who has suffered far more pain than she did. Levi is one of them. And here in her letter, Lucy is trying to find out the subtle difference "between the two sets of truths"--that separates her accusations of ingratitude towards others and her own lack of gratitude for what she already has: life. Later, in her book Autobiography of a Face, Lucy writes a very truthful and beautiful story of herself, ultimately about that difference, with stupendous poignancy.
She did not veer off.
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