Face

Face . . . is filled with fictional vignettes that examine real-life societal attitudes and internal fears that have caused a negative perspective on women's faces as they age. -TODAY, a Best Book of 2021

There is nothing wrong with your face. At least, that's what Justine Bateman wants you to realise. Her new book, Face: One Square Foot of Skin, is a collection of fictional short stories told from the perspectives of women of all ages and professions. With it, she aims to correct the popular idea that you need to stop what you're doing and start staving off any signs of ageing in the face. -W Magazine

Combining the author's intensely personal stories with relevant examples from the culture at large, the book is heartbreaking and hopeful, infuriating and triumphant. -Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Face is a book of fictional vignettes that examines the fear and vestigial evolutionary habits that have caused women and men to cultivate the imagined reality that older women's faces are unattractive, undesirable, and something to be "fixed."

Based on "older face" experiences of the author, Justine Bateman, and those of dozens of women and men she interviewed, the book presents the reader with the many root causes for society's often negative attitudes toward women's older faces. In doing so, Bateman rejects those ingrained assumptions about the necessity of fixing older women's faces, suggesting that we move on from judging someone's worth based on the condition of her face.

With impassioned prose and a laser-sharp eye, Bateman argues that a woman's confidence should grow as she ages, not be destroyed by society's misled attitude about that one square foot of skin.