The Facemaker
One Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I
Published on 1. June 2023
Book
Paperback/Softback
336 pages
978-0-14-199029-3 (ISBN)
Description
THE INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER
Best Books of the Year, Guardian
The poignant story of the visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War's injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. The war's new weaponry, from tanks to shrapnel, enabled slaughter on an industrial scale, and given the nature of trench warfare, thousands of soldiers sustained facial injuries. Medical advances meant that more survived their wounds than ever before, yet disfigured soldiers did not receive the hero's welcome they deserved.
In The Facemaker, award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the astonishing story of the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to restoring the faces - and the identities - of a brutalized generation. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction in Sidcup, south-east England. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of doctors, nurses and artists whose task was to recreate what had been torn apart. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.
Meticulously researched and grippingly told, The Facemaker places Gillies's ingenious surgical innovations alongside the poignant stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine and art can merge, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.
Best Books of the Year, Guardian
The poignant story of the visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War's injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery
From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: mankind's military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. The war's new weaponry, from tanks to shrapnel, enabled slaughter on an industrial scale, and given the nature of trench warfare, thousands of soldiers sustained facial injuries. Medical advances meant that more survived their wounds than ever before, yet disfigured soldiers did not receive the hero's welcome they deserved.
In The Facemaker, award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris tells the astonishing story of the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to restoring the faces - and the identities - of a brutalized generation. Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world's first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction in Sidcup, south-east England. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of doctors, nurses and artists whose task was to recreate what had been torn apart. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.
Meticulously researched and grippingly told, The Facemaker places Gillies's ingenious surgical innovations alongside the poignant stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine and art can merge, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.
Reviews / Votes
In this fascinating book, Fitzharris reminds us there is nothing superficial about plastic surgery's ability to heal minds as well as bodies. Five stars -- Kathryn Hughes * Mail on Sunday * Scholarly yet deeply moving... This is a fascinating book about a remarkable man, and of how teamwork is such an important part of good surgery. Despite the grim subject matter, it is a deeply moving and uplifting story -- Henry Marsh * New Statesman * Careful... sensitive... [Fitzharris] has successfully pieced together the story of a team of doctors, hospital workers and patients "battling" together during the First World War to modernize reconstructive plastic surgery... Fitzharris constructs a variegated and tender account of the First World War, its brutality and its narratives of human redemption... Tenderness and pathos pervade the personal stories of surgery and recovery, as well as Fitzharris's engagement with the ethics of facial difference and display -- Christine Slobogin * TLS * The Facemaker is an engaging biography of a masterful surgeon as well as a heartening account of medical progress * Economist * Meticulously researched... Five stars -- Catharine Arnold * Telegraph * Sometimes distressing, sometimes thrilling, The Facemaker had me gripped; it is elegantly written and endlessly fascinating. Employing just the right balance between diligent research and ingenious reanimation, Fitzharris brings to life a neglected slice of medical history, telling both Gillies' story as well as that of many of the men whose faces - and lives - he saved -- Lucy Scholes * Financial Times * Engrossing... Fitzharris presents an intensely moving and hugely enjoyable story about a remarkable medical pioneer and the men he remade -- Wendy Moore * Guardian * A skilled storyteller, Fitzharris takes the reader back to the front, making them trudge and slide through mud filled with missing limbs to find the people who stagger into Gillies's casebooks... Properly contextualised, these faces become not objects of horror or surgery, as they have been all too often used, but pathways into understanding what it is to lose a face, and with it, not only the ability to eat, drink and breathe, but also social acceptance and love -- Fay Bound Alberti * The Lancet * With rich, glossy strokes The Facemaker restores a sense of immediacy to the daily struggles facing Gillies and his colleagues as they improvised under constant pressure -- James Riding * The Times * Out of war's most awful wounds, out of gore and terror and pain, Lindsey Fitzharris has - like Sir Harold Gillies himself - crafted something inspiring and downright miraculous. I cannot imagine the sweat and sleuthing and doggedness that went into gathering the details and building the narratives of these men's struggles. This book is riveting. It is gruesome but it is also uplifting. For as much as there is blood and bone and pus in these pages, there is heart. As Fitzharris shows us, the scalpel is mightier than the grenade, and the pen is mightiest of all. What a triumph this book is -- Mary RoachMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 24 mm
Weight
270 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-14-199029-3 (9780141990293)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
06/2022
1st Edition
Penguin Books Ltd
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Lindsey Fitzharris is a New York Times bestselling author and medical historian who brings the grisly, surprising, and deeply human history of medicine to life. She is the author of The Butchering Art-winner of the PEN/E.O. Wilson Prize for Literary Science Writing and shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize and the Wolfson History Prize-and The Facemaker. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford and appears regularly on CNN, BBC, C-SPAN, and NPR.