The Face
A groundbreaking new series of personal nonfiction in which a diverse group of writers takes readers on a guided tour of that most intimate terrain: their own faces.
Read an interview with Joshua about the series in the Los Angeles Review of Books.
Alternately philosophical, funny, personal, political, and poetic, the short memoirs in THE FACE series offer unique perspectives on race, culture, identity, and the human experience from some of our most dynamic literary writers. Our inspiration for The Face comes from a passage by Jorge Luis Borges:
“As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”
“It's a jazzy concept: Give hugely talented writers the same basic notes (their own faces), turn them loose and watch them riff seemingly endless melodic variations on the theme. The prompt is diabolically clever…. deep, intricate, often funny, and genuinely moving meditations on family, ancestry, race, ethnicity, culture, aging, past, present and future…. If Restless Books can sustain this level of quality throughout the series, I'm in for the long haul.”