Skin Game

Caroline Kettlewell

In the few years since its release, Skin Game has taken on an almost iconic air. I'm not sure whether it was the first memoir focusing on cutting that appeared or not, but that seems to be the most likely explanation. One other possible explanation, the book's finest moments, are when Kettlewell is profiling herself during her cutting days; anyone who's ever been a cutter (or wanted to be one) is likely to recognize a few, or more, facets o his or her own personality in Kettlewell's own soul-searching.

The bad part, however, is that the rest of the book has some problems. The biggest of these is its pace. Kettlewell has the idea of the hook down-- we open with her in a bathroom stall sawing away at her wrist with the dull saw blade from a Swiss army knife-- but then things start dragging, and for much of the rest of the book (which runs barely a hundred eighty pages, but often seems two or three times that), the pace remains pedestrian at best.

There are certainly things to be gained from reading Skin Game, but don't go in expecting one of the breezy, easy-to-read memoirs that have become so popular in the past few years.