Both Uses of
laceration
in
A Prayer for Owen Meany
- This was a guy who'd been drinking a bottle of beer when one car hit another; he'd been the driver of one of the cars, he said, and the bottleneck had broken in his mouth on impact—he had lacerations on the roof of his mouth, and his gums were slashed, and the broken neck of the bottle had pierced his cheek.†
p. 435.2
- He proudly showed us the lacerations inside his mouth, and the hole in his cheek—all the while mopping up his mouth and face with a bloodsoaked wad of gauze, which he periodically wrung out in a bloodsoaked towel.†
p. 435.3 *
Definition:
a cut -- especially of the skin -- and often implying that the cut was not clean, but instead left jagged edges