Face (Complete Works of Cecile Pineda series) [Paperback]

Cecile Pineda (Author)

Book Description

Series: Complete Works of Cecile Pineda series | Publication Date: September 2003

When a Brazilian man's face is disfigured, he attempts a grisly self-surgery in this novel of survival.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Nominated for a 1985 American Book Award, this first novel centers on a Brazilian man whose face is horribly disfigured in an accident. Helio Cara loses his job, his mistress, his friends, and then seeks to create a new visage through a grisly form of self-surgery. PW called Pineda's theme of identity "compelling."
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Cecile Pineda is a writer of the utmost artistic integrity... FACE continues to haunt me. -- J.M. Coetzee, 2003 Nobel Prize

There is an immediacy to her narrative, combined with images that startle our senses, that leave us haunted. -- San Francisco Chronicle, 1985

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 174 pages
• Publisher: Wings Press (TX); Second edition edition (September 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0930324900
• ISBN-13: 978-0930324902
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,442 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgettable, February 12, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Face (Paperback)

I read this book a long time ago, but where others fade,this remains in my memory. It is a most unusual tale of the triumph of the human spirit. The main character suffers a disfiguring injury which has a profound effect on his life. The steps he takes to re-enter the world are nothing short of amazing. Read it. You won't forget it.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Have You Ever Thought You Couldn't Make it? This Book Is for You!, August 11, 2005

By 

Gianluca L. Ferme "gianchi66" (Chicago, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Face (Complete Works of Cecile Pineda series) (Paperback)

Helio Cara grew up in a world where nothing can be taken for granted. His dad is killed when he is young, he grew up in a shack and lives in a shanty town surrounding Rio de Janeiro. Then, one day, something happens to him which turns the odds even more against him: A man tells him there is a telegram at the post office, his mother is about to die, he runs down the shanty to the post office, he falls and "looses" his face in a fall from a cliff onto rocks below. He is broke, both physically and financially. No one wants to help him; his mother is dead; he looses his job, his girlfriend; they burn his shack; he moves to his mother's shack in the interior; they try to kill him. Yet, he decides he will try to reconstruct his face by himself. He reads about plastic surgery and scrounges up money from his night-time job (watering trees in an orchard) to buy novocaine. Finally, his break: A doctor experimenting on reconstruction techniques decides he can hospitalize him to finish the work he had begun. He goes back to Rio de Janeiro. He sees his old girlfriend and her new companion on the bus. But he is already a man with a new face, outside and inside. She doesn't recognize him. He moves on.

My only critique about this novel is that the decision to rebuild his face, so important to the whole direction of the book, happens in a scant half page. There is no prelude.

But the writing is that of a master: Pineda describes situations, details, with true skill, and this was her first book. Truly remarkable.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars terrible, August 17, 2010

By 

ashley - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Face (Complete Works of Cecile Pineda series) (Paperback)

I orderded paid and never recieved my product. Then after contacting the seller I was ignored and had to file a claim.. avoid using this seller as you probably will not recive the ordre that you have paid for.