Distinctive and unique, facial appearance is hugely important in every encounter we will ever have. From the concept of beauty to the social ill of discrimination, the importance of the face in our interpersonal interactions is certainly known. But have you ever thought about the role your face plays in your day-to-day life, or the way your face may have determined the outcome of an incident from your past?
In About Face, twenty-five writers tackle this question, each using the same simple framework of an opening paragraph that objectively considers what they see when they look in the mirror. Each writer then details an experience that transpired, in one way or another, because of the face they live with: a feature that belies a woman's heritage, a scar that serves as a daily reminder of a childhood tragedy, an unwanted change due to sun exposure or smoking or drinking.
Since we live our entire lives behind our faces, About Face presents a challenge: to consider exploring our experiences from a vantage point we simply don't have access to. This collection uncovers surprising outcomes and truly unique observations about internal experiences as witnessed from the writers' external points of view.
"Twenty-three women, including Hudson valley Resident Dana Kinstler, reflect on their reflections, exploring issues of beauty, ethnicity, aging, scars, makeup and more. Author photos, rounds as compact mirrors accompany each essay. Strikingly few of the writers describe themselves as the camera sees them—perhaps that’s the point. A provocative read." —Chronogram Magazine, December 2008
"Comedic, heartwarming and inspiring stories about what a girl takes from the mirror and adds to her sense of self. Ranging from ages 22 to 75, women from various ethnicities and walks of life evaluate the impact societal beauty myths, media and role models have on a woman’s sense of self, identity and even career choice. With an introduction from renowned make-up artist Bobbi Brown, we learn makeup is only your enemy if it becomes a weapon you use on yourself to hide from the world. About Face dares you to do what 25 other women have already done: Turn your face to the mirror and learn, know and love what you see, imperfections and all." —Curve Magazine, January 2008
Review
Comedic, heartwarming and inspiring stories about what a girl takes from the mirror and adds to her sense of self. Ranging from ages 22 to 75, women from various ethnicities and walks of life evaluate the impact societal beauty myths, media and role models have on a woman's sense of self, identity and even career choice. With an introduction from renowned make-up artist Bobbi Brown, we learn makeup is only your enemy if it becomes a weapon you use on yourself to hide from the world. About Face dares you to do what 25 other women have already done: Turn your face to the mirror and learn, know and love what you see, imperfections and all.
Christina Baker Kline is a novelist, nonfiction writer and editor. In addition to Bird in Hand, her novels include The Way Life Should Be, Desire Lines and Sweet Water. She is Writer-in-Residence at Fordham University.
Kline was born in Cambridge, England, and raised there as well as in the American South and Maine. She is a graduate of Yale, Cambridge, and the University of Virginia, where she was a Henry Hoyns Fellow in Fiction Writing. In addition to Fordham, she has taught fiction and nonfiction writing, poetry, English literature, literary theory, and women's studies at Yale, New York University,and Drew University. She is a recent recipient of a Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellowship, a Writer-in-Residence Fellowship at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and a Fordham Research Grant. She donates her time and editing skills to a number of arts organizations in New Jersey and Maine.
Kline is coeditor, with Anne Burt, of a collection of personal essays called About Face: Women Write About What They See When They Look in the Mirror. She also commissioned and edited two widely praised collections of original essays on the first year of parenthood and raising young children, Child of Mine and Room to Grow. She is co-author, with her mother, Christina Looper Baker, of a book on feminist mothers and daughters, The Conversation Begins. Her essays, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Yale Review, Southern Living, Ms., Parents, and Family Life, among other places.
Kline has worked as a caterer, cook, and personal chef on the Maine coast, Martha's Vineyard, and in Charlottesville, Virginia. She lives in an old house in Montclair, New Jersey, with her husband, David Kline; three boys, Hayden, Will, and Eli; and Lucy, an English springer spaniel. She spends summers with extended family in an even older house on Mount Desert Island in Maine.
