Marked for Life: A Memoir

by Joie Davidow

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.

Marked for Life chronicles Joie’s coming of age with a facial difference and a family who tried to deal with the purple mark by denying its existence. It is the story of Joie’s search for a man whose love she could trust despite her marked face, and her passion for the man who loved and accepted her.

It is the story of how she refused to be defined by the stain that disfigured her and how, finally, she came to realize that, despite being “marked for life,” she is really just another face in the crowd, no different from anyone else.

Written with honesty, wit, and a true storyteller’s gift, this book will resonate with all of us who have at times felt that we, too, were secretly marked and somehow different from the rest of the world.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

First published June 17, 2003

Reviews

[Grace Stinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fantastic! Every second had me wanting more. The writing was easy to understand but completely different than anything I have read. The way people treated her was awful. This is a great read. She showed great confidence and bravery they ending made the whole book worth it

[Terri Dixon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone has things that they have to deal with in life. It's rare that I read a story about one of those things that actually gets across what it feels like to live with it. Joie takes us on a journey through her life in a way that tells us how she felt growing up with her birthmark. She didn't use it as a platform to discuss her trauma as much as she did to tell us how good of a life she lived despite the issue. I've always been a glass is half full type of person, and I enjoyed the telling of her story, because it was of triumph as well as setback. Balanced is good.

[Savanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this book was amazing. The beginning was quite boring though but as I got through the book it became interesting. However it was a downfall when Joie always wore makeup, if it was me I would show my face.

[Marylynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult for me to read given that our precious granddaughter has the same mark. I wasn't ready to face the pain in this book.