Book Review
The Facemaker: The man who reconstructed countless soldiers’ broken lives and faces
Lindsey Fitzharris’s new book reveals how the revolutionary methods used by pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies helped facially wounded military men to rebuild their existences in the wake of World War I
On November 20, 1917, Private Percy Clare was shot in the face. During the Battle of Cambrai on the Western Front, the 36-year-old soldier was approaching a German trench with his platoon when a bullet tore through both his cheeks. The bullet hit just in front of Clare’s right ear, travelled downwards, barely missed his right eye, smashed his jaw, and then shattered his left cheek. When he opened his mouth to scream, no sound ...
