Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body

It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished: A Memoir of My Body

Gies, Kate

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralHistory & Philosophy of Science

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 1668051052
ISBN13: 9781668051054
Publisher: Scribner Canada
Published: Feb 4 2025
Pages: 336
Weight: 0.95
Height: 1.30 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
A raw, beautiful memoir of a girl born missing an ear, a medical system insistent on saving her from herself, and our culture's desire to fix bodies.

When Kate Gies was four years old, a plastic surgeon pressed a synthetic ear to the right side of her head and pulled out a mirror. He told her he could make her whole--could make her right--and she believed him. From the age of four to thirteen, she underwent fourteen surgeries, including skin and bone grafts, to craft the appearance of an outer ear. Many of the surgeries failed, leaving permanent damage to her body.

In short, lyrical vignettes, Kate writes about how her disfigured body was scrutinized, pathologized, and even weaponized. She describes the physical and psychic trauma of medical intervention and its effects on her sense of self, first as a child needing to be fixed and, later, as a teenager and adult navigating the complex expectations and dangers of being a woman.

It Must Be Beautiful to Be Finished is the story of a girl desperately trying to have a body that makes her acceptable and of a woman learning to own a body she has never felt was hers to define. In an age of speaking out about the abuse of marginalized bodies, this memoir takes a hard look at the role of the medical system in body oppression and trauma.

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