Editorial Content for New Skin
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Linli Feng was eight years old the first time her mother, Fanny, got plastic surgery. She is now in her mid-20s, and Fanny has since subjected her face to more and more extreme treatments, many of which were conducted by unlicensed practitioners or using unregulated processes. When Linli thinks back over her life, she feels like her mother was only really hers until that first surgery. Now, it's like Fanny is a stranger, each successive surgery taking her further and further away.
"NEW SKIN is at times funny, but it's not always an easy read.... What could have been a jokey or satirical approach becomes something much darker and more intense in Sarah Wang's debut novel."
Three years ago, Linli moved from Los Angeles to Washington state, finally escaping from the codependent relationship she shared with her increasingly bizarre-looking mother. Now, though, just as she's about to depart for a prestigious graduate program in New York City, which will enable her to help vulnerable women, her mom's own vulnerabilities are sucking her back in. After yet another botched nose job, Fanny develops disturbing side effects, causing Linli to derail her own plans and instead spend her days alongside Fanny as she convalesces. The two of them watch episode after episode of a popular reality show about plastic surgery, “America's Beauty.”
However, their claustrophobic existence is disrupted when Fanny is arrested and charged with providing false statements to law enforcement. She claimed not to know the identities of the illegal practitioners targeting her and other largely immigrant, working-class women with harmful surgical procedures. Fanny is convinced that she can solve all their problems when she scores a spot on a spinoff reality show, “America's Beauty Extreme,” which promises the winner full reconstructive surgery to fix the plastic surgery blunders that landed them on the program in the first place.
While Linli watches Fanny compete --- at times brilliantly and certainly strategically --- she grows determined to clear her mother's name by uncovering the plastic surgery ring herself. Her investigation draws her deep into this dark underside of Los Angeles society and reveals how the vast divides marked by race, class and immigration status extend even as far as the beauty industry. It also runs the risk of drawing Linli herself into the trap of these practitioners, begging the question: Will she follow in her mother's footsteps?
NEW SKIN is at times funny, but it's not always an easy read. The description of various procedures and their aftermath, as well as the occasional vivid and shocking images that sometimes creep into Linli's first-person narration, might make readers feel uneasy or on edge. What could have been a jokey or satirical approach becomes something much darker and more intense in Sarah Wang's debut novel. Elements of horror start to creep in around the edges, and the sometimes tongue-in-cheek exploration of beauty culture and reality television becomes a far deeper interrogation over what it means to become American.
Teaser
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home. For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables. But Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
Promo
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home. For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery. Now her disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables. But Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
About the Book
A scalding, darkly humorous debut following an enmeshed mother-daughter duo, both best friends and enemies, and the plastic surgery addiction that warps their lives into a perilous spiral.
At 26, Linli Feng is still trying to escape her mother Fanny’s orbit. But after three years of estrangement, just when Linli has been accepted into a prestigious graduate program, she is dragged back by Fanny’s latest medical catastrophe and forced to return home.
For decades, Fanny has been addicted to plastic surgery, getting bargain procedures in the basements of LA’s bootleg beauty industry. Now Fanny’s disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected and collapsing yet again from black-market injectables.
But even as Linli wades through the wreck of family finances and juggles her mother’s medical care, Fanny has another secret in store. Fanny has won a spot on “America’s Beauty Extreme,” a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in. When Linli attempts to rescue Fanny from the sinister subculture that already has claimed her mother’s face, she must confront the corrosive reality of the American Dream that is at the fraught heart of their relationship.
Audiobook available, read by Jen Zhao
