Rave
Jennifer Szalai,
New York Times
Grisly yet inspiring.
Rave
James L. Swanson,
Wall Street Journal
Both heartbreaking and inspiring, The Facemaker tells a profound story of survival, resurrection and redemption.
Rave
Lorraine Berry,
Los Angeles Times
A fascinating medical history.
Rave
Wendy Moore,
The Guardian (UK)
In her engrossing book, Lindsey Fitzharris not only tells the story of Gillies’s achievements, she immerses us in the world of the men he helped.
Rave
Maureen Corrigan,
NPR
Fitzharris, a historian of science and medicine, has written a riveting, old-fashioned, man-meets-the-moment account of Gillies' work in the field of plastic surgery.
Rave
Lucy Scholes,
Financial Times (UK)
The process of facemaking, Fitzharris captivatingly shows, required both surgical innovation and artistic skill.
Positive
James Riding,
The Times (UK)
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.
Positive
Sharrona Pearl,
Washington Post
Conveys the emotional, physical and psychical effects of having an injured and altered face, directly from those who had to deal with them.
Positive
Christine Slobogin,
Times Literary Supplement (UK)
... she 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. Through tangential but substantive anecdotes related to the plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, Fitzharris constructs a variegated and tender account of the First World War, its brutality and its narratives of human redemption.
Rave
Matthew Shipsey,
Irish Times (IRE)
Fitzharris is a gifted storyteller and delights in just about the right amount of detail.
Mixed
Elizabeth McGowan,
Washington Independent Review of Books
As heartbreaking stories emerge daily from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s difficult to imagine anything uplifting coming from any war ever. But author Lindsey Fitzharris reveals hope in the carnage of a long-ago conflict in The Facemaker.
Positive
Tony Miksanek,
Booklist
Commendable.
Positive
Aaron Klink,
Library Journal
An engaging, at times moving biography of Harold Gillies.
Rave
Publishers Weekly
A fascinating portrait.
Rave
Kirkus
[An] often graphic yet inspiring, engaging book.