Close to the Bone: A Memoir

Lisa Ray is one of India’s first supermodels. She’s also an acclaimed actor, a cancer survivor, a mother of twins born through surrogacy, a lifelong student, and a person of no fixed address. She is a woman who has lived many lives. And this is her story.

Unflinching and deeply moving, Close to the Bone traces Lisa Ray’s serendipitous life, from her childhood in Canada as the biracial daughter of an Indian man and Polish woman, to her rise as a Bollywood star; from her battle with a rare and incurable cancer, to her journey to find identity and belonging, both in the world and in her own body. Transporting and atmospheric, it takes readers across the globe: Toronto in the 1970s, when Lisa was searching for place and purpose; the intense, frenetic streets of Bombay, where, young and unmoored, she became a peer of some of the biggest names in the Bollywood industry; the lush sensuality of Colombo and a film role that changed the course of her career; and in London, where she simultaneously found her footing in drama school and lost herself in an abusive relationship. It is a storied life, and one whose adventures teach Lisa that in the brightest and darkest moments, no matter where she travels to, she can always find her way back home—to herself.

At once charming and wise, intimate and gut-wrenchingly honest, Close to the Bone is a revealing travelogue of the soul—a brave and inspiring story of a life lived on one’s own terms.