Thin Skin [Paperback]

Thin Skin, Emma Forrest's second novel, centres on an archetypal screwed-up rich girl--Drew Barrymore with maybe a dash of Elizabeth Wurtzel for good measure. Ruby (few characters in this sharp little book have surnames) was once a precocious, teenage Hollywood starlet; now at 20 she's a bulimic, self-mutilating pill popper desperately "trying to be ruined beauty". Her latest picture, Mean People Suck, a credibility enhancing but probably box office disaster independent, has brought her back to her native New York. Here the ghosts of her past mingle (in the case of her childhood love Liev, quite literally) with her troubled present.

Besotted by Alslan her ethereal, conspiracy theory-obsessed costar--"the New World Order is stealing all the water"--the unrequited Ruby looks like following her mother's example by committing suicide. Ex-boyfriend Sebastian, Rachel, the ex-wife of her former lover Scott and Cyrinda, a dirty club queen with plenty of filthy lucre, lend support but there is limit to how many of Ruby's attention-seeking tantrums even they can endure. Structured, in part, like a film--with flashbacks and straight-to-camera-style monologues--this tautly written book is a refreshing take on the usual fame-game yarn. Full of sardonic observations on celebrity, sex and film, Forrest offers a convincing snapshot of a world where bodies must be beautiful and clothes must be Prada. --Travis Elborough

"Emma Forrest has returned with another streetwise and savvy story"

"Electric, irreverent prose. When people talk about voice, this is what they mean"

"Emma Forrext writes with the peculiar wisdom of a wicked tongued, acutely observant young woman."

"Skeletal and luminous, 'Thin Skin' takes the coming-of-age novel to places it has never been before."

"Deeply cynical and darkly funny ... It'll make you laugh - and think"

"beautifully written ... Forrest is a very good observer of human nature."

'My talents are: I knew what I wanted. I knew what I didn't want. I knew at a young age...I have the added advantage of scrubbing up nicely when I feel like it, so I look like I have range, when really I just have good skin.' At fifteen Ruby left home, got herself an agent and became a film star. Now twenty, she lives alone, in a world of hotels and fast food. Destructive and charming, cutting is Ruby's hobby. Her hair, her arms and occasional tattoos - her newest accessory is a bloodline necklace. A seductive blend of heroine and whore, she has left the man who loves her, been fired by her agent, and is starring in a film opposite the delectable Aslan. It is quite possibly her last chance. Striking, funny and razor sharp, Thin Skin is a novel in which we see that sometimes you have to look over the edge in order to see your way back.

I am the author. I write to you from my studio apartment in New York City, where it is 95 degrees today. I have a mirror by my computer so that my cat can sit on the desk and look at himself whilst I'm writing. Lkkkko78u. That was him walking across the keyboard. He's pissed at me because I went to the movies so I could sit in air conditioning. When I came home he looked like a melted ice cream. The film was amazing. Everybody go see ‘Donny Darko' when it comes out there. It feels like something of a companion piece to ‘Thin Skin': magical realist, melancholy and yet strangely hopeful. Looking at it now, ‘Thin Skin' seems like an exorcism. I was so sad when I wrote it but I'm not anymore.

Sometimes I think I'm a method writer. I do remember getting all the same haircuts/bad dye jobs as Ruby when I wrote the book. A haircut sounds like such a trivial thing, but it's the mellow end of a whole spectrum of things an unhappy girl like Ruby can do to her body when she needs someone to ask "Hey, are you okay?": tattoos, cutting, bulimia. The female body as a blank canvas on which to express your fear and loathing.

Although Ruby, a twenty year old b-movie star, is definitely an anti-heroine, I find her tremendously sympathetic. I want to reach in and help her the same way I want to reach into childhood photos and whisper encouragement to the kid me. Yes, I am a narcissist (I am a writer) and I used to be proud of it, but I'm not anymore and neither is Ruby by the end. It took me four years between my first novel, Namedropper and Thin Skin, but when it came, I just banged it out. A lot was written at The Chateau Marmont Hotel in LA, where Greta Garbo used to stay and John Belushi died. There are some interesting ghosts in those halls. A few of them may have slipped onto the page.

Some other influences on my writing process this time around:

Hitting mid-twenties and realizing I would never again be the youngest girl at the rock show. Happened the other night at Andrew WK- I felt so old, but also so happy that I wasn't fifteen anymore because if I was fifteen, I would cry myself to sleep at night because he doesn't know I exist. He actually reminded me a little of Aslan, one of my favourite characters in Thin Skin: a beautiful void to fill the void.

Disassociative personality disorder (when you are so thin skinned you think that a song on the radio/ a story in the paper/ a book/ movie is about you. The most random cultural debris seeps into you by osmosis).

‘Darkness On The Edge of Town' by Bruce Springsteen. My interpretation of it was about deliberately making mistakes in order that you might pay for them.

‘Ghost Dog – Way Of The Samurai' by Jim Jarmusch. Because the samurai must always think of death.

‘Blue' by Joni Mitchell – a nervous breakdown on record, she says. I think the same is ultimately true of ‘Thin Skin'.

‘Rumours' by Fleetwood Mac (because the correlation between drug psychosis and romantic psychosis is so spot on).

‘Natasha'- the biography of Natalie Wood.

‘American Pastoral' by Philip Roth (like he needs my plug)

‘Cat People' (the original, starring Simone Simon.) Like ‘Thin Skin' it deals with young, female alienation and unease with the sexual self.

There are some hardcore sex scenes in ‘Thin Skin'. Hardcore in that they are so lonely, in a moment when you should feel closest to someone. I have to say the sex scenes are the thing I'm proudest of in this book.

Hope you like it. Or if you don't, that it at least has some effect on you. The next one will be more upbeat, I promise. Let me know what you think. Shalom.

Emma Forrest began her writing career as a journalist, contributing to the Sunday Times, Independent, Guardian and Saturday Telegraph magazine. Her debut novel, Namedropper, was published in 1998 and translated into five languages. Film Four are currently developing it as a film. In 2001 she sold an original screenplay, her first, to Bloc - Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's production company. Now twenty-five, she lives in Manhattan, where she is at work on her third novel.