3.5
Thin Skin
ByPublisher Description
ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR • A GOODREADS MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK • Examining capitalism’s toxic creep into the land, our bodies, and our thinking, this incisive new work is “a visceral exploration” (Katherine May, author of Wintering) from a National Book Award finalist and a powerful literary mind.
"A wrenching, loving and trenchant examination of feminism, nuclear weapons production, healthcare, queerness and American life" —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
For Jenn Shapland, the barrier between herself and the world is porous; she was even diagnosed with extreme dermatologic sensitivity—thin skin.
Recognizing how deeply vulnerable we all are to our surroundings, she becomes aware of the impacts our tiniest choices have on people, places, and species far away. She can't stop seeing the ways we are enmeshed and entangled with everyone else on the planet. Despite our attempts to cordon ourselves off from risk, our boundaries are permeable.
Weaving together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico, Shapland probes the lines between self and work, human and animal, need and desire. She traces the legacies of nuclear weapons development on Native land, unable to let go of her search for contamination until it bleeds out into her own family’s medical history. She questions the toxic myth of white womanhood and the fear of traveling alone that she’s been made to feel since girlhood. And she explores her desire to build a creative life as a queer woman, asking whether such a thing as a meaningful life is possible under capitalism.
Ceaselessly curious, uncompromisingly intelligent, and urgently seeking, with Thin Skin Shapland builds thrillingly on her genre-defying debut My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (“Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant” —Carmen Machado), firmly establishing herself as one of the sharpest essayists of her generation.
"A wrenching, loving and trenchant examination of feminism, nuclear weapons production, healthcare, queerness and American life" —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
For Jenn Shapland, the barrier between herself and the world is porous; she was even diagnosed with extreme dermatologic sensitivity—thin skin.
Recognizing how deeply vulnerable we all are to our surroundings, she becomes aware of the impacts our tiniest choices have on people, places, and species far away. She can't stop seeing the ways we are enmeshed and entangled with everyone else on the planet. Despite our attempts to cordon ourselves off from risk, our boundaries are permeable.
Weaving together historical research, interviews, and her everyday life in New Mexico, Shapland probes the lines between self and work, human and animal, need and desire. She traces the legacies of nuclear weapons development on Native land, unable to let go of her search for contamination until it bleeds out into her own family’s medical history. She questions the toxic myth of white womanhood and the fear of traveling alone that she’s been made to feel since girlhood. And she explores her desire to build a creative life as a queer woman, asking whether such a thing as a meaningful life is possible under capitalism.
Ceaselessly curious, uncompromisingly intelligent, and urgently seeking, with Thin Skin Shapland builds thrillingly on her genre-defying debut My Autobiography of Carson McCullers (“Gorgeous, symphonic, tender, and brilliant” —Carmen Machado), firmly establishing herself as one of the sharpest essayists of her generation.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesThin Skin Reviews
3.5
“nice essays about New Mexico, lost steam halfway through”
“Taking a queer, ecofeminist perspective, Jenn Shapland examines the porous boundaries between the self and the world, and how we mutually Influence each other. Each essay sheds light on our political and cultural willingness to wasteland entire communities and ecosystems to prop up a capitalist society.
Topics covered include
- nuclear projects and radioactive contamination
- how fear begets violence
- consumption
- finding purpose in late stage capitalism
- parenthood and choosing not to have children
This is a complicated book for me to review, because there were parts I liked and disliked in equal measure.
I’ll start off with what I did like:
- Shedding light on the impacts of The Manhattan Project and the Los Almos National Laboratory on the Pueblo people and environment
- That each essay included descriptions of how people and areas are considered sacrifice zones
- When Jenn Shapland told stories of her own life, like her summer camp experience or travelling alone by train
Now, for what I disliked:
- Jenn Shapland made a lot of point blank statements that came across as universal truths without using evidence, stories, or descriptions to support her point
- Quite an academic read. Each essay was quite dense and took me about 2.5 hours to read 30 pages
- The last essay on parenthood and choosing not to have children. There are many valid reasons to not have children, I just wasn’t particularly convinced by the majority of points she brought up in this essay. And the focus on valorizing the self ended up contradicting the rest of the essays that were pushing away from the concept of neoliberal individualism.
I think this would’ve worked better either as a memoir or as historical nonfiction. Because blending the two ended up meaning that both the personal reflections and historical analysis weren’t as convincing, with not enough time given to either style.
I will say that I read this for book club and it certainly did provoke plenty of discussion!”
“I found there was a lot of duplication in this collection. I wished this had been written as a book as opposed to a collection of narrative essays. There were a number of interesting discussions including conscious childlessness, environmental contamination, and capitalism.”
About Jenn Shapland
JENN SHAPLAND’s first book, My Autobiography of Carson McCullers, was a finalist for the National Book Award and won a Lambda Literary Award and a Christian Gauss Award, among other honors; it has been translated into Spanish, French, and Polish. Shapland has a PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where she works as an archivist for a visual artist.
Other books by Jenn Shapland
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