Skip to main content
PBS logo
 
 

Search - Man without a Face

Man without a Face
Man without a Face
Author: Isabelle Holland
A fatherless fourteen-year-old boy develops an unusual relationship with the man living near his summer home who helps him prepare his entrance exams to boarding school.
ISBN-13: 9780816161119
ISBN-10: 0816161119
Publication Date: 4/21/1975
Pages: 248
Edition: Large type edition
Rating:
  ?

0 stars, based on 0 rating
Publisher: G. K. Hall & Company
Book Type: Hardcover
Other Versions: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review
Read All 1 Book Reviews of "Man without a Face"

Please Log in to Rate these Book Reviews

havan avatar reviewed Man without a Face on + 138 more book reviews
Having seen the movie and hearing about the controversy surrounding Mel Gibson playing the title role, I had still never read the book. I saw this copy on a clearance table at Haslam's Bookstore and the 75 cent price appealed to me. It was also somehow fitting that this copy had a scarred front cover.

The story deals with a teen-aged guy in an otherwise all female household who's looking to escape to a boarding school but he's tanked the entrance exams and when the family goes to a coastal town in New England for the summer he ends up enlisting the aid of a mysterious local nicknamed "The Grouch" to aid him in preparing for a retest. The Grouch has horrible facial burns from some nebulous accident in the past and is a bit of a hermit and a misanthrope who prefers the isolation of his cliffside house, his horse and his ferocious dog.

The boy is a loner himself and a bit of a misogynist but he and his reluctant tutor begin to form a band and a friendship. The novel is set firmly in the 70's with the parents suffering from the pop psychology of the time and the kid thinking in terms such as "ratfink" but otherwise the story is pretty timeless.

Though a loner, the kid is charming and we grow to like and understand him through the course of the tale. As we learn more about Justin, the man without a face, we also understand him. Given the era in which it was written the climactic scenes of the story are necessarily a little vague and much of what Gibson was criticized for was really the same in the book.

As it is, this is an interesting and compelling coming of age story, and perhaps a coming-out story though that's far from clear. Either way, it is a worthwhile read.


Genres: