Face (Contemporary American Fiction)

The Story

On a chill and stormy day, a man slips and plunges over a cliff into an experience that will change his life forever. But Helio Cara's fall from a cliff is not merely a fall that results in horrific disfigurement. It is a fall from grace. The fabric of his daily existence comes unraveled as jobless, penniless, deserted by lover and friends; he is driven from his home by horrified neighbors. At last, using needle, thread, and razor blades, he determines to reconstruct his own face and to rebuild a place for himself in the world. Face is the story of a man at the limit of existence who finds the patience and courage to change himself. With power, intensity and sparseness of poetry, it voices the predicament of all people who partake of a culture, which separates the individual's notion of self from his sense of community.