Easy Beauty: On Seeing and Being Seen

'GORGEOUS, VIVIDLY ALIVE' NEW YORK TIMES 'BOLD, HONEST AND SUPERBLY WELL-WRITTEN' ANDRÉ ACIMAN, AUTHOR OF CALL ME BY YOUR NAME 'GRACEFUL AND SOUL-BARING' MELANIE REID, THE TIMES 'WHAT A GIFT . . . HAS THE RIGOR AND PRECISION OF JOAN DIDION AND MAGGIE NELSON AND A FORTHRIGHT HUMOR AND NAKED TRUTH ALL OF ITS OWN.' SARAH RUHL, AUTHOR OF SMILE I am in a bar in Brooklyn listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether or not my life was worth living. So begins Chloé Cooper Jones's bold account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis, she must contend not only with her own physical pain, but the emotional discomfort of others. It is only when she unexpectedly becomes a mother that she confronts the demand to live life fully, propelling her on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she'd been denied, and denied herself. From Roman sculptures to a Beyoncé concert, from a tennis tournament to the Cambodian Killing Fields, Jones interrogates the myths of beauty with spiky intelligence, aesthetic philosophy, love and humor, inviting us to find a new way of seeing.