“‘My face is a gift’: David Roche approaches his disfigurement with humor and a human touch”
‘ When we last caught up with David Roche, a humorist and motivational speaker who explores the implications of his own facial deformity, he was an unpublished author.
Technically, he still is. His first book, “The Church of 80% Sincerity,” isn’t due out until February — but already the manuscript has gotten a coveted starred review from Publisher’s Weekly, which lauds it as “a powerful little book that’s part memoir, part inspirational handbook.”
Roche’s publisher, Perigee/Penguin, plans a first printing of 50,000, a substantial amount for an unknown author, albeit one with a busy performing schedule and a hefty list of contacts in the disability arts world.
“I’m real hopeful. I’ve paid a lot of dues over the years. I’ve traveled around the country, doing things like … going to [a] class at UIC. All the people I’ve done that for, are going to support the book,” says Roche, 63, of Marin County, Calif.
The book includes many aspects of Roche’s irreverent act, which is part biography, part social commentary and part manifesto. After a happy childhood in Indiana, a turbulent adolescence in seminary and a rudderless young adulthood in San Francisco, all marked by a denial of his facial difference, Roche faced his fears and summoned the courage to embark on a career that would span continents and make him a pioneer in disability arts.
He also began talking about his spiritual ideal, dubbed, half tongue-in-cheek, the Church of 80% Sincerity. The church embraces us as we are (80 percent sincere), rather than as we’re supposed to be (100 percent).
“We also believe in 80 percent celibacy. Eighty percent compassion. And do you know the exact balance between healing and revenge should be 80 percent healing, 20 percent revenge?” Roche writes.
Roche, whose face is swollen and asymmetrical due to a benign congenital tumor formed by engorged veins and capillaries, writes of the girl who wouldn’t kiss him during spin the bottle, the priests who thought he was too unattractive to attend seminary and the children who point and stare.
But his story is surprisingly upbeat and frequently funny. Consider this description of a 4- or 5-year-old who spots Roche at a coffee shop:
“The whiny face disappears instantaneously (I ought to hire out my services with the slogan, ‘Quasimodo Child Distractors: Mood Changes Guaranteed.’) Derek’s eyes widen. His mouth opens. He backs up half a step, never taking me out of his sight . . . He is pretty sure I am a monster but he is not sure if I am real. Only my dermatologist examines me this closely. He isn’t just checking out my face. He looks for monster accouterments. I look up and give a little smile. He gives a little wave. He stops every forty-five degrees for a mental photo.”
Now married and enjoying a rewarding new stage in his career, Roche writes that he has learned to see his story as, in some ways, universal.
He draws connections, for instance, between himself and the ordinary-looking people who approach him after speaking engagements to confide their feelings of shame and inadequacy over, say, their freckles or learning disabilities.
“I do believe that we each have a place inside of us where fear resides, that fear of being unworthy, a sinner, carrying bad karma, untouchable,” writes Roche.
“Seeing and accepting one’s ‘flawed’ condition is a core spiritual experience, an essential step in developing emotional maturity. It is a basic human task, the task of redemption, and it is hard work.”
