Diksha Sundriyal
Based on the book of the same name by Cheryl Strayed, Hulu’s ‘Tiny Beautiful Things’ follows the story of Clare Pierce, who is offered to write an advice column for an online magazine. Initially, Clare doesn’t consider herself a good fit for the job. However, when she the letters from readers, she taps into her own experiences to come up with advice that she decides to follow herself as well.
The show is split into two parts: one follows 49-year-old Clare, while the other digs into her grief and trauma as a young adult. In the younger part of her life, the relationship between her and her brother, Lucas, is explored. However, he remains largely absent in the future, much like Cheryl Strayed’s brother.
Cheryl Strayed’s Brother Leads a Private Life Today
Named Lucas in the Hulu series, Cheryl Strayed’s brother is Leif Nyland. While she is a famous writer who has become a household name with his books like ‘Wild’ and her advice column Dear Sugar, her brother has remained away from the spotlight. Strayed’s stories mostly focus on her mother, and she rarely talks about her siblings in interviews and other works.
In the show, Clare only has Lucas, but in real life, Strayed has an elder sister named Karen. Leif is the youngest of the three. After their mother’s death, the tight-knit relationship between the siblings fell apart, with all of them processing their grief separately, taking very different paths in the process. “Leif and Karen and I were inextricably bound as siblings, but we spoke and saw one another rarely, our lives profoundly different,” Strayed wrote in her memoir, ‘Wild,’ which was later adapted into the Academy Award-nominated film directed by Jean-Marc Vallée.
“After my mom died, my family fell apart. And that included my siblings. I love them very much, and they love me, but our relationship has been difficult since our mother died in so many ways. They’ve struggled just like I’ve struggled, and sometimes, that has led to a sense of distance or concern. And I really wanted to put that into this story,” Strayed told The Guardian.
The Hulu series, which is partially based on Strayed’s life, doesn’t feature her sister. However, portraying the relationship between Clare and Lucas takes a lot of real-life incidents from Strayed and Leif’s life. One of the most heartbreaking incidents is when their mother is on her deathbed, and Clare goes looking for Lucas, hoping to bring him to the hospital so that they can both be with their mother when she dies. However, by the time they come back, Frances is already dead.
This happened in real life, too. Reportedly, by the time Strayed and Leif arrived at the hospital, their mother had already been dead for an hour. They found out about it when a nurse, who didn’t know they weren’t informed yet, told them to put ice on their mother’s eyes so her corneas could be donated. In another harrowing incident, which didn’t make it into the show, Strayed and Leif discovered that their mother’s beloved horse got sick after her death. Out of mercy, they decided to put the animal out of its misery and had to shoot it dead.
Strayed has mentioned these incidents in ‘Wild,’ which she says her siblings are supportive of. “They have had difficult lives, you know, and we never have been close like the way we were when my mother was alive. But we love each other,” she said. Speaking about her brother, Strayed said, “He’s a wonderful person with a beautiful heart, and I love him a lot.” Considering all that they have been through and the fact that Strayed has already talked a lot about her personal life in public, it is understandable that her siblings would want to stay away from public scrutiny and enjoy their privacy.
Read More: Who is Cheryl Strayed’s Husband? How Many Kids Does She Have?
