The Facemaker

By Lindsey Fitzharris,

Book cover of The Facemaker: A Visionary Surgeon's Battle to Mend the Disfigured Soldiers of World War I

Book description

A New York Times Bestseller
Finalist for the 2022 Kirkus Prize

"Enthralling. Harrowing. Heartbreaking. And utterly redemptive. Lindsey Fitzharris hit this one out of the park." —Erik Larson, author of The Splendid and the Vile

Lindsey Fitzharris, the award-winning author of The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked The Facemaker as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I have been on a World War I reading binge lately. Some of it was for research, so when I came across this book, I was hooked.

The horror of the new mechanized war left unbelievable facial wounds on many of the survivors of the trenches. The only benefit was the birth of plastic surgery, which had no choice but to advance quickly. The British surgeon Dr. Gillies and his compatriots in France and the US did their best to reconstruct the devastation left by the war.

There are graphic descriptions of surgeries and photos, but most memorable were…

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. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. But we often forget to ask the most important questions: who put the soldiers back together? And how? I’m a medical and scientific historian, so these are often the queries that haunt me most. With powerful prose, Lindsey (a dear friend of mine and an incredible author) recounts the early days of plastic surgery, of men who needed their faces rebuilt, and the man who made it…

What is a man without a face? Are they a person? A freak of nature? A spectacle? Fitzharris dives into the post-World War One plastic surgeries, and the pioneers that gave people back their faces, and lives, through their ingenuity. War heroes, celebrated for their bravery, but reviled for their injuries take center stage, and the challenges of adapting to a society that doesn't have a place for them speak of larger issues of belonging and representation. Vivid and stirring, this book packs an emotional punch — as do the accompanying pictures. A must-read.

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

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