Beauty

Written by Susan Wilson

Narrated by Polly Draper

Beauty and the Beast may be a fairy tale, but for one woman its moral rings true in real life.

When Alix Miller goes to New Hampshire to paint a portrait of Leland Crompton, she is following family tradition— Miller artists have always painted the Crompton aristocrats. But the reclusive Leland is hideously disfigured by a rare genetic disease, and Alix is uncomfortable rendering him on canvas. She begins the task anyway, and through her art she gradually reveals a brave, sensitive man behind the mask of deformity. When Leland helps her through a terrible crisis, Alix is forced to reassess her priorities, and learns a valuable lesson about the transformative power of love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phoenix Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 1, 1996
• ISBN: 9781614675839

Susan Wilson

From the time I was a little girl, the word "writer" held a special significance to me. I loved the word. I loved the idea of making up stories. When I was about twelve, I bought a used Olivetti manual typewriter from a little hole in the wall office machine place in Middletown, CT called Peter's Typewriters. It weighed about twenty pounds and was probably thirty years old. I pounded out the worst kind of adolescent drivel, imposing my imaginary self on television heroes of the time: Bonanza, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Star Trek. Those are my earliest memories of my secret life of writing. For reasons I cannot really fathom, I never pursued writing as a vocation. Although I majored in English, I didn't focus on writing and it wasn't really until I was first married that I hauled out my old Olivetti and began to thump away at my first novel. This was, as I recall, an amorphous thinly plotted excercise in putting sentences together and has mercifully disappeared in some move or another. I didn't try anything more adventurous than some short stories and a lot of newsletters for various things I belonged to until we moved to Martha's Vineyard and I bought my first computer. My little "Collegiate 2" IBM computer was about as advanced as the Olivetti was in its heyday but it got me writing again and this time with some inner determination that I was going to succeed at this avocation. I tapped out two novels on this machine with its fussy little printer. Like the first one, these were wonderful absorbing exercises in learning how to write. What happened then is the stuff of day time soap opera. Writing is a highly personal activity and for all of my life I'd kept it secret from everyone but my husband, who, at the time, called what I did nights after the kids went to bed, my "typing." Until, quite by accident, I discovered that here on the Vineyard nearly everyone has some avocation in the arts. Much to my delight, I discovered a fellow closet-writer in the mom of my kids' best friends. For the very first time in my life I could share the struggle with another person. I know now that writers' groups are a dime a dozen and I highly recommend the experience, but with my friend Carole, a serendipitious introduction to a "real writer", Holly Nadler, resulted in my association with my agent. Holly read a bit of my "novel" and liked what she read, suggested I might use her name and write to her former agent. I did and the rest, as they say, is history. Not that it was an overnight success. The novel I'd shown Holly never even got sent to Andrea. But a third, shorter, more evolved work was what eventually grew into Beauty with the guidance of Andrea and her associates at the Jane Rotrosen Agency. The moral of the story: keep at it. Keep writing the bad novels to learn how to write the good ones. And, yes, it does help to know someone. Andrea might have liked my work, but the path was oiled by the introduction Holly Nadler provided. Hawke's Cove is my second published novel, although there is a "second" second novel in a drawer, keeping good company with the other "first" novels.

Reviews for Beauty

[nyiper · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Just "beautifully" written.

[itentertainsme · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Not going to say much about the plot, the synopsis is pretty self-explanatory. Alix Miller is hired to paint a portrait of Lee Crompton, who is a disfigured recluse. For practicality, she lives with him while she works on it. I'm not going to say much more, because half the point is the ending, and I don't want to give it away.I am only going to say that I absolutely love this book. I've had this book since it was released [way back in the late 90's], and it has made it through every book donation clean out that I've had. (And I've had a lot of those!) It is a quick read - I can read through it in a day - and it is a fantastic story. It's on my "Keep Forever" shelf, and I pull it out and read it every once in a while. Definitely recommend it.

[deslivres5 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beauty and the Beast retelling, this time between an artist and writer whose families have been tied together for centuries because of portraiture. I like my Beauty and the Beast with the anguish, trepidation, realization, separation and the happily ever after. No full marks from me because of one of the five was missing for me.

[willowsmom_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a quick read, but very absorbing. I very much enjoy fairy tale adaptations, and this one was different from the rest of the pack as far as Beauty and the Beast retellings go--much more focused on the Beast, and the life created by their love, rather than just ending on the 'happily ever after' note. I found some areas of the plot to be rather sketchily fleshed out, but overall this was an enjoyable read, albeit sad.

[meyben_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An artist falls for a deformed man, but like the fairy tale learns to love what is inside and not outside.