The Story Of Beautiful Girl

The Story of Beautiful Girl is a 2011 novel by Rachel Simon. Taking place between 1968 and the mid-2000s, it follows Lynnie, a developmentally disabled woman, and Homan, a deaf African-American man, who are committed against their wills to a regressive mental health institution. Refusing to live on the margins of society, Lynnie and Homan make an escape together after falling in love. After giving birth to a baby girl named Julia, they hide out in the Pennsylvanian countryside under the care of a farmer named Martha. Julia is then thrust into Martha’s hands when the authorities come searching for the two escapees. Simon’s emancipatory narrative is highly sympathetic to the plights of people with disabilities, who have been incarcerated and abused throughout American history.

The novel begins in 1968. Martha, an elderly widow and retired teacher, lives an isolated life on her farm in rural Pennsylvania. Martha has long fallen out of contact with the outside world; she rarely uses her telephone, having no family with whom she can stay connected. On one gloomy night during a rainstorm, her quiet life is suddenly interrupted when Lynnie and Homan knock on her door. Disheveled, tired, and hungry, they explain that they have run away from The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded. The institution is known as a place for families to put their disabled family members with the assurance that they will remain there indefinitely. Martha decides to care for the couple and is surprised to see that Lynnie is swaddling a baby girl born mere hours before.

Lynnie and Homan settle in at a deeply compassionate Martha’s farm. However, their sanctuary only lasts briefly: soon, the police knock on the farmhouse door asking if Martha knows of there whereabouts. As Homan makes a getaway into the forest, the police capture Lynnie. Lynnie’s final plea to Martha is to take care of Julia. Tragically, Lynnie is taken back to The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, and Martha takes on the responsibility of raising her child.



Soon, Martha fears that people nearby will realize she is taking care of a baby that is clearly not her own. She leaves her farm, staying at a series of homes belonging to former students while taking on the challenges of motherhood. In a separate narrative thread, Homan moves surreptitiously between cities, evading warrants for his capture while trying to get closer to Lynnie. Lynnie, meanwhile, suffers at the mental institution, where security doubles down, preventing her escape. Martha writes a large number of letters chronicling Julia’s childhood and coming-of-age. Before she dies, she places Julia in the care of a friend named Pete.

Decades later, Lynnie makes it out of the mental institution and reunites with Homan. Kate, one of Lynnie’s friends from The School for the Incurable and Feebleminded, gives Lynnie the box of letters, given to her by Pete before his death. At the end of the novel, the parents finally catch up to their daughter with the help of the letters and their friends. After forty years, the family obtains some sense of normalcy and rests knowing that their struggles have paid off. The Story of Beautiful Girl humanizes people with physical and mental disabilities and offers a sympathetic reading of their attempts to live fulfilling lives in a world that stigmatizes them.