Book Review

Title: Elizabeth Grant: My Life, My Story – A Memoir

Author: Marion Suzenne Witz & Carol Krenz

Publisher: Author House

Pages: 222

ISBN: 978-1-4490-4760-3

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Elizabeth Grant is a fascinating woman! Her name might ring a bell as she is the Queen of Cosmetics with her Elizabeth Grant beauty product line that is a best-seller on Canada’s Shopping Channel, internationally renowned and a well-known brand used by numerous celebrities. I know Elizabeth Grant from my mother’s television, as it appears the only thing she watches is this highly animated, enthusiastic and pleasantly playful woman talk about her “girls” and how much her products will change your life. Truth be told, Elizabeth Grant doesn’t seem to make statements she can’t uphold. Her own life changed when she was badly scarred from a bomb blast while living in London during WWII’s Blitz. Grant managed to transform her tragedy into a blessing and ended up with a business empire. While waiting in her doctor’s office one day, Elizabeth Grant discovered an experimental ingredient called Torricelumn that helped soldiers heal their wounds. What was initially a mission to heal her own scars led Grant to discover a serum akin to youth in a bottle.

Into her eighties, Elizabeth Grant decided it was probably time to write her memoir – or at least, up until the “autumn” of her life as she puts it. Age is merely a frame of mind for Grant as she acts youthful, and looks decades younger than her actual age. Grant’s memoir is full of honesty about her own life, which was not easy and far from a fairytale, but she seems to have worked with what she has and made the absolute best out of what was handed to her. Grant has been endowed with a great virtue – resourcefulness.

My Life – My Story is a collection of memories from one woman’s incredible life that had her living in England, South Africa and Canada. The book can be divided into two areas that seem to best define Elizabeth Grant – her cosmetics business and those she was affected by. Her mother and stepfather played large roles in defining who she would become, as well as her marriage, children and vast amount of friends with whom she spent many joyous hours, including one of my favourite personalities – Noel Coward!

However, perhaps the most touching moment of the book, and defining moment in Grant’s life, was the day she confronted Charles for standing her up on a date scheduled for a few weeks previous. Grant’s belief was that she was stood-up because of her newly scarred face from the bomb blast, when in fact, it was the unfortunate day that Charles went out to get a newspaper and returned home to see it had been bombed and his family had all died in the explosion. Charles was the only survivor, and Grant had saved his life. “He put his head on my shoulder and sobbed. This was my turning point. I put my arms around him. I made up my mind there and then that I was going to survive this war and to do this I needed to rebuild my inner strength,” she says in My Life – My Story.

Charles was a chemist and ended up by being the person who would help Grant develop Torricelumn, and help her initially find avenues to build her empire. It seemed that Elizabeth would have to save Charles’ life so that he could do so in kind. My Life – My Story is full of memories like this from the war, from her years in South Africa during the apartheid, from her times spent in jazz bars with friends and her eventual evolution back to her family in Canada; a lifetime of trials and successes.

The book is very direct and the stories speak for themselves, quite often in Grant’s delicious British colloquialisms like when she says she was a “nosy parker,” or references Mrs. Slocombe from Are You Being Served. Elizabeth’s stories are told through her daughter-in-law Marion, who is the President for Elizabeth Grant Cosmetics and Carol Krenz, a beauty journalist for more than twenty years. Marion provides the Foreword and Carol the Prologue, which are really testimonies to Grant’s greatness as a human being as both women speak from a perspective of high admiration.

Elizabeth Grant’s memoir My Life – My Story reminds me of the description of Beatrice in William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. "There's little of the melancholy element in her, she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever sad then; for I have heard say she hath often dreamed of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing." Grant’s life seems to be about finding joy within oneself, even when life has been less courteous to play along.

Grant’s story is inspirational to women the world over. My only complaint about this book, and it is a major one, is that it is not twice its size! Left wanting more, I read My Life – My Story in a day, used a couple of hankies to wipe the tears away paired with many outbursts of laughter, and enthusiastically passed it on to my mother for her to read as well. My Life – My Story is as inspiring a read as Elizabeth Grant is to watch. Perhaps it is time to make my face look as good as Grant's!

Written by :

Kindah

 

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