Easy Beauty - by Chloé Cooper Jones

Book Synopsis

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Memoir or Autobiography

A New York Times Notable Book of 2022 * Vulture's #1 Memoir of 2022 * A Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA TODAY, Time, BuzzFeed, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and New York Public Library Best Book of the Year * One of Oprah Daily's 33 Memoirs That Changed a Generation

From Chloé Cooper Jones--Pulitzer Prize finalist, philosophy professor, Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient--an "exquisite" (Oprah Daily) and groundbreaking memoir about disability, motherhood, and the search for a new way of seeing and being seen.

"I am in a bar in Brooklyn, listening to two men, my friends, discuss whether my life is worth living."

So begins Chloé Cooper Jones's bold, revealing account of moving through the world in a body that looks different than most. Jones learned early on to factor "pain calculations" into every plan, every situation. Born with a rare congenital condition called sacral agenesis which affects both her stature and gait, her pain is physical. But there is also the pain of being judged and pitied for her appearance, of being dismissed as "less than." The way she has been seen--or not seen--has informed her lens on the world her entire life. She resisted this reality by excelling academically and retreating to "the neutral room in her mind" until it passed. But after unexpectedly becoming a mother (in violation of unspoken social taboos about the disabled body), something in her shifts, and Jones sets off on a journey across the globe, reclaiming the spaces she'd been denied, and denied herself.

From the bars and domestic spaces of her life in Brooklyn to sculpture gardens in Rome; from film festivals in Utah to a Beyoncé concert in Milan; from a tennis tournament in California to the Killing Fields of Phnom Penh, Jones weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability and interrogates her own complicity in upholding those myths.

"Bold, honest, and superbly well-written" (Andre Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name) Easy Beauty is the rare memoir that has the power to make you see the world, and your place in it, with new eyes.

Review Quotes

"A rich, decadent book that rewards close reading... anyone who immerses themselves in Chloé's writing will come away with a greater understanding of everything beautiful about the human experience, and how to behold it." -Isaac Fitzgerald, The Today Show "[An] exquisite memoir." -O, The Oprah Magazine "Easy Beauty is bold, honest, and superbly well-written. Chloé Cooper Jones is ruthless in probing our weakest and darkest areas, and does so with grace, humor, and ultimately, with something one seldom finds: kindness and humanity." -André Aciman, author of Call Me By Your Name "Part travelogue and part treatise... Philosophy, art, gender, sex, travel, motherhood, academia, humor-this book has it all." -New York Public Library "Written with the curiosity of a scholar, the compassion of a mother, and the keen insight of a person who has lived on the margins of what is deemed acceptable, Easy Beauty is a rare, poignant gem of a memoir... Transcendent." -Bookreporter "Jones resists sentimentality and is as unsparing on herself as she is on other people, yet she writes with such graciousness, too. A wonderful debut." -Buzzfeed "Transcendent... In keeping the reader close as she navigates the world, Jones lets us in on the effort it takes to move through the world in a disabled body... This is all rendered in sentences, insights, and metaphors so precise and evocative that demonstrate her literary mastery." -Oprah Daily "Soul-stretching, breathtaking... A profound, impressive, and wiser-than-wise contemplation of the way Jones is viewed by others, her own collusion in those views, and whether any of this can be shifted... A game-changing gift to readers." -Booklist (starred review) "A spiky and inspiring book for any reader at odds with a superficial culture." -Los Angeles Times "Jones' writing is thoughtful and deeply felt, and her stories will fascinate anyone who wants to look at the world in a new way." -Apple Books (Best of the Month) "Perceptive, stylish, and darkly funny, Easy Beauty is an act of grace, and a reckoning. Chloé Cooper Jones is a remarkable writer-I would follow her mind anywhere." -Anna Wiener, author of Uncanny Valley "I recommend Easy Beauty to anyone who has wanted beauty badly, even without knowing quite what it is, but who could never seem to access it. At least, I'm that sort of anyone, and I could feel and recognize parts of myself in every moment of this book. Chloé Cooper Jones' writing pierces right through and lets a light in." -Mitski

About the Author

Chloé Cooper Jones is a philosophy professor, journalist, and the author of the memoir Easy Beauty, which was named a Best Book of 2022 by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, Time, and others. She is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant recipient and, in 2020, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Feature Writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.