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 Marked for Life: A Memoir
by Joie Davidow (Newsgroup member and Director of Makeup & Skincare at Birthmarks.com)
Attractive and successful, Joie Davidow presents a confident face to the world. But her carefully applied makeup conceals a secret she has kept for decades. She was born with a port-wine stain, a purple mark that covers most of the left side of her face, including her eye. Tormented as a child, shunned as a teenager, she thought of herself as deformed and ugly until, in her second year of college, she discovered cosmetics that would allow her to hide the mark on her face. She learned to paint on a mask that made her appear normal, if not downright beautiful. Suddenly she was no longer “the girl with the big purple mark.” Behind the mask she was safe, protected from the astonished eyes and unkind remarks of strangers. Her deception was her freedom, but it was also her imprisonment, a threat that never left her. For most of her life she feared that a hot, humid day, a strong wind, an errant tear, or even a fervent embrace would destroy the face she had so painstakingly created, revealing her shameful secret. While hiding behind the mask, she became a newspaper editor, then a magazine publisher. She sat front and center at runway shows in Paris, London, Milan, and New York. She was an authority on all things glamorous, appearing frequently on television. But alone at night, she washed her face and saw a disfigured woman in the mirror. JOIE DAVIDOW cofounded L.A. Weekly and founded L.A. Style and Sí magazines. She edited the anthologies Las Mamis and Las Christmas with Esmeralda Santiago and is the author of Infusions of Healing. She lives in Rome and Los Angeles. |
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| Price: |
$16.07 (List Price: $22.95) |
| Publisher: |
Harmony Books |
| Published: |
2003 |
| ISBN: |
1400047412 |
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