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| Photo by Dan Winters, from Raffi Khatchadourian's "Transfiguration" |
“Best of the Decade” is a selection of twelve of my favourite New Yorker pieces from the last ten years. Each month I choose a piece and try to say why I’m drawn to it. Today, I’m pleased to post my #4 pick – Raffi Khatchadourian’s “Transfiguration” (The New Yorker, February 13 & 20, 2012).
“Transfiguration” is an extraordinary account of a ground-breaking surgical operation – “a full face transplant, something that had never been done before.” What do I mean by “extraordinary”? Consider this passage:
Pomahac walked back to the Tupperware container and gently took the transplant out. His movements were clinical and measured, as if he were handling a delicate piece of art. The face was the same color as his surgical gloves: latex beige, pale, glistening with ice water. It was slightly unshaven, as if the beard had grown in transit. The rubbery-looking skin supported an inch or so of cartilage, vessels, fat, and nerves – a red mash of tissue – beneath it. Spread out in Pomahac’s hands, the face was massive, about the circumference of a hubcab.
I read that eight years ago, when the piece first appeared, and I’ve never forgotten it. Khatchadourian’s depiction of the face color (“latex beige, pale, glistening with ice water”) is transfixing. The detail about it being “slightly unshaven” is inspired. His description of the whole complex, intense operation, consisting of two procedures (removal of the donor’s face; replacement of the recipient’s face with the donor’s face), is spellbinding. Over the years, I’ve read some great New Yorker action descriptions (McPhee on canoeing, Angell on baseball, Paumgarten on skiing, Buford on cooking), but this piece on surgery is – I’ll say it again – absolutely extraordinary.
Khatchadourian is an excellent noticer of details. Here’s his description of the surgeon Bohdan Pomahac transferring the face:
Pomahac carefully swiveled from the trolley to the operating table, placing the donor’s face where Wien’s own face had been. “It’s going to go twice around his,” he observed dispassionately. During the dissection, Pomahac had cut the skin far beyond the hairline, to transplant part of the scalp as well. The donor’s hair was slightly lighter than Wiens’s – it had some gray in it – and some of Wiens’s hair poked out from underneath, as if he were wearing an ill-fitting mask.
That “some of Wiens’s hair poked out from underneath, as if he were wearing an ill-fitting mask” is superb.
It’s not clear whether Khatchadourian actually witnessed the face transplant first hand, or whether his descriptions are reconstructions based on videos, transcripts, interviews, etc., but it doesn’t matter. His account of the operation appears totally authentic, completely accurate, and positively riveting.
Not only is Khatchadourian a great describer; he’s also a brilliant quoter. “Transfiguration” is a rich, beautifully interwoven assemblage of quotation from multiple first and secondary sources. Khatchadourian appears to have sought out and directly talked to most of the people principally involved, including Dallas Wiens, the incredibly brave, resilient, tolerant recipient of the face transplant; Jeffrey Janis, the reconstructive surgeon who oversaw Wiens’s miraculous recovery at Parkland Hospital; Bernard Devauchelle, chief of maxillofacial surgery at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire d’Amiens, who conducted the first face transplant; Bohdan Pomahac, America’s “leading specialist in face transplants,” and leader of the surgical team that performed Wiens’s operation; Elof Eriksson, chief of plastic surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who was a key member of Pomahac’s team; and various members of Wiens’s family.
Reviewing this piece back in 2012, I wrote, “Khatchadourian’s ‘No Secrets’ and ‘The Gulf War’ are brilliant, but ‘Transfiguration’ is his masterpiece (so far). It’s an unforgettable piece of writing. It moves Khatchadourian to the front rank of New Yorker writers.”
Pomahac walked back to the Tupperware container and gently took the transplant out. His movements were clinical and measured, as if he were handling a delicate piece of art. The face was the same color as his surgical gloves: latex beige, pale, glistening with ice water. It was slightly unshaven, as if the beard had grown in transit. The rubbery-looking skin supported an inch or so of cartilage, vessels, fat, and nerves – a red mash of tissue – beneath it. Spread out in Pomahac’s hands, the face was massive, about the circumference of a hubcab.
I read that eight years ago, when the piece first appeared, and I’ve never forgotten it. Khatchadourian’s depiction of the face color (“latex beige, pale, glistening with ice water”) is transfixing. The detail about it being “slightly unshaven” is inspired. His description of the whole complex, intense operation, consisting of two procedures (removal of the donor’s face; replacement of the recipient’s face with the donor’s face), is spellbinding. Over the years, I’ve read some great New Yorker action descriptions (McPhee on canoeing, Angell on baseball, Paumgarten on skiing, Buford on cooking), but this piece on surgery is – I’ll say it again – absolutely extraordinary.
Khatchadourian is an excellent noticer of details. Here’s his description of the surgeon Bohdan Pomahac transferring the face:
Pomahac carefully swiveled from the trolley to the operating table, placing the donor’s face where Wien’s own face had been. “It’s going to go twice around his,” he observed dispassionately. During the dissection, Pomahac had cut the skin far beyond the hairline, to transplant part of the scalp as well. The donor’s hair was slightly lighter than Wiens’s – it had some gray in it – and some of Wiens’s hair poked out from underneath, as if he were wearing an ill-fitting mask.
That “some of Wiens’s hair poked out from underneath, as if he were wearing an ill-fitting mask” is superb.
It’s not clear whether Khatchadourian actually witnessed the face transplant first hand, or whether his descriptions are reconstructions based on videos, transcripts, interviews, etc., but it doesn’t matter. His account of the operation appears totally authentic, completely accurate, and positively riveting.
Not only is Khatchadourian a great describer; he’s also a brilliant quoter. “Transfiguration” is a rich, beautifully interwoven assemblage of quotation from multiple first and secondary sources. Khatchadourian appears to have sought out and directly talked to most of the people principally involved, including Dallas Wiens, the incredibly brave, resilient, tolerant recipient of the face transplant; Jeffrey Janis, the reconstructive surgeon who oversaw Wiens’s miraculous recovery at Parkland Hospital; Bernard Devauchelle, chief of maxillofacial surgery at Centre Hospitalier Universitaire d’Amiens, who conducted the first face transplant; Bohdan Pomahac, America’s “leading specialist in face transplants,” and leader of the surgical team that performed Wiens’s operation; Elof Eriksson, chief of plastic surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, who was a key member of Pomahac’s team; and various members of Wiens’s family.
Reviewing this piece back in 2012, I wrote, “Khatchadourian’s ‘No Secrets’ and ‘The Gulf War’ are brilliant, but ‘Transfiguration’ is his masterpiece (so far). It’s an unforgettable piece of writing. It moves Khatchadourian to the front rank of New Yorker writers.”
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