Saving Face

<p><strong>This author goes where no other might dare</strong>. Catherine Filloux award-winning playwright </p><p>What's in a smile? Or the absent smile? Saving Face is Effy Redman's thought-provoking answer.</p><p>Born with a rare condition of facial paralysis called Moebius Syndrome Redman's grit and eye for beauty help her survive childhood bullying and adolescent doldrums. Her physical transformation at age thirteen via plastic surgery eviscerates her concept of image just in time for her and her family to immigrate from hardscrabble Manchester England to America's disorientingly scenic upstate New York. Not until diagnosis in young adulthood with bipolar disorder does Redman come out of the closet as a lesbian finally claiming her most inherent identity.</p><p><em>Saving Face</em> is a searing personal tribute to anybody who has ever felt like an outsider. This memoir honors the grace of a face that stands out in a crowd defying societal beauty norms. Disability meets transcendence suffering becomes hope and the individual expands into community. The inability to smile in Redman's book lights a window onto the human capacity for redemption.</p>