They say a book can contain multitudes and Sarah Wang’s debut novel, New Skin, arrives with much anticipation as case in point. For years the writer has published essays, cultural criticism, and short stories that are as astutely written as they are politically poignant, and her novel shares these impressive dualities. It balances an admirable attention to sentences with pressing resonances about immigration and class, all topped off with a delightful, dark romp through plastic surgery, reality TV shows, and underworld crime subplots.
New Skin begins as twenty-six-year-old Linli returns home to Los Angeles after a 3-year hiatus. On arrival, she finds her mother Fanny’s face remarkably disfigured due to an addiction to bootleg plastic surgery procedures administered at under-the-table LA parlours. A careful portrayal of a seething mother-daughter relationship ensues, one in which traditional caretaking roles are skewered as Linli tries to get her mother’s dependency under control. Things spiral, to say the least, when Fanny signs herself up to star on America’s Beauty Extreme, a reality show that offers its winner facial reconstruction surgery.
