Book Review: "The Story of Beautiful Girl"

Until the publication last year of her wonderful novel, The Story of Beautiful Girl, the writer and public speaker Rachel Simon was best known as a memoirist. The best-selling, critically acclaimed Riding the Bus with My Sister is a funny, sad, sweet retelling of the year Rachel spent riding the city buses of Philadelphia with her disabled sister Beth. The book, which tops many “best of” lists, was made into a movie by Anjelica Houston, starring Rosie O’Donnell and Andie McDowell.

The House on Teacher’s Lane, Rachel Simon’s memoir about renovating the home she shares with her architect husband, was a quieter success. This inspiring book, published in hardcover as Building a Home with My Husband, is as quotable and sharable as Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love. Teacher’s Lane, like Eat Pray Love, is about a woman who questions every choice she has made, in her career, in her love life, and within her family. Unlike Eat Pray Love, however, Teacher’s Lane is a journey made at home, by a woman who is already grounded.

The lessons about life and love that Rachel Simon shares in her memoirs – life is hard and strange and beautiful, all because of love – are on full, imaginative display in The Story of Beautiful Girl.

The novel is a love story, of course, one that spans 40 years. On a rainy night in 1968, Lynnie, a mentally disabled white woman, and Homan, a deaf black man, materialize on the doorstep of a retired schoolteacher and widow, Martha. Martha invites them in, her mind busy with reservations about asking strangers into her empty, remote farmhouse. As she watches them warm themselves by the fire, Martha begins to understand their disabilities, intuits the deep connection of love between them, and sees the tiny baby cradled in Lynnie’s arms.

The opening of this novel is remarkable because, until the police arrive, there is almost no dialogue. Martha says few words to the couple: apart from some gentle questions and reassurances, Martha is as quiet and watchful as deaf Homan. Lynnie can speak, but she does not – this will be explained gradually, as we come to know Lynnie – and she and Homan have their own silent language of gesture and touch.

When the police arrive, the strange spell of silence is broken, and we learn that Homan and Lynnie have run away from an institution, the School for the Incurable and Feebleminded. Homan escapes, Lynnie is taken back to the School, and Martha is left with the newborn baby.

After the night in the farmhouse, the novel begins to alternate points of view. We return to the School with Lynnie, where we wait with her for Homan. We follow Homan away from the farmhouse as a series of disastrous wrong turns and mishaps lead him farther from Lynnie and the School. We watch Martha’s heart open as she raises Lynnie’s baby, Julia. We meet Julia as she grows into an adult under Martha’s care.

The School is a truly dreadful place, where abuse and neglect have stolen not only Lynnie’s voice, but also the stories of countless disabled people. The spell of silence that Simon creates in the opening chapter is recreated each time we enter Lynnie’s world or return to Homan’s mind. It is nothing short of miraculous, the way they both speak without speaking throughout this book. Homan has developed his own language of almost-words to explain to himself what he does not understand, while Lynnie’s is a language of colors, shapes, and symbols. Where there is dialogue in this novel, some of it is stilted and a bit awkward, but even this doesn’t feel like a flaw – it feels right, somehow, because each of the characters has so much to learn about communicating, about life, about love.

And they do learn. Martha, Julia, Lynnie, and Homan all change and grow over the harrowing 40 years of this beautiful novel, and unless you have a heart of solid stone, you will change and grow, too. I’m giving nothing away, telling you that the story has a happy ending. And it’s not just a happy ending, it’s a delightful, laugh-till-you-cry, movie-music-swelling-up happy ending. And you see it coming, because it’s the only way this story can end, because the characters don’t see it coming. Because this is a novel written in the language of love.