Items related to Skin Game: A Memoir
Caroline Kettlewell's autobiography reveals a girl whose feelings of pain and alienation led her to seek relief in physically hurting herself, from age twelve into her twenties. Skin Game employs clear language and candid reflection to grant general readers as well as students an uncensored profile of a complex and unsettling disorder. "[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female," Francine Prose noted in Elle. "[Kettlewell's] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin."
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Review:
A number of recent books by journalists and therapists have probed the social and psychological forces behind the alarming practice of self-mutilation; this unflinching memoir tells readers what it feels like. Caroline Kettlewell made her first attempt at age 12 with a Swiss Army knife, too dull to perform satisfactorily, but she quickly graduated to razor blades. "There was a very fine, an elegant pain," she writes of her initiation. "In the razor's wake, the skin melted away ... then the blood welled up ... the chaos in my head spun itself into a silk of silence." Describing her tense but not unusually difficult youth, the author doesn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out why she was so unhappy, concentrating instead on making palpable her sense of dread and terror of being out of control, emotions relieved by the act of cutting. Some readers may wish for more self-analysis, but others will find Kettlewell's austere prose and sensibility refreshing. "I kept cutting because it worked. When I cut I felt better, " she explains. "I stopped cutting because I always could have stopped cutting." Not the fanciest way to put it, but those sentences, like the entire book, have the cadences of "the plain and inelegant truth." --Wendy Smith
From the Publisher:
"Skin Game is a book of monumental value and importance. Caroline Kettlewell's graphically honest descriptions of her own self-inflicted violence are a testimony to her tremendous courage and strength. Readers are sure to be moved, enlightened, and empowered."
--Tracy Alderman, Ph.D., author of The Scarred Soul: Understanding and Ending self-inflicted Violence and Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide for Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
--Tracy Alderman, Ph.D., author of The Scarred Soul: Understanding and Ending self-inflicted Violence and Amongst Ourselves: A Self-Help Guide for Living with Dissociative Identity Disorder
"In this remarkable, exquisitely written, and important book, Kettlewell reveals the sublime seductiveness of self-wounding and makes sense of the seemingly senseless....This is a book about the human condition and about how flesh and spirit both battle and sustain each other. Kettlewell successfully manages to put on paper what many others are unable to describe coherently. I am thankful that her pen was mightier than her razor."
--Armando Favazza, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Missouri-Columbia, author of Bodies Under Siege
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherSt. Martin's Griffin
- Publication date2000
- ISBN 10 0312263937
- ISBN 13 9780312263935
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages192
- Rating
Buy New
Learn more about this copy
US$ 16.09
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Seller Image
Skin Game: A Memoir (Paperback or Softback)
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin 6/7/2000
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Paperback or Softback
Quantity: 5
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback or Softback. Condition: New. Skin Game: A Memoir 0.55. Book. Seller Inventory # BBS-9780312263935
Buy New
US$ 16.09
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Softcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition 0.4. Seller Inventory # bk0312263937xvz189zvxnew
Buy New
US$ 18.59
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Softcover
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. New! This book is in the same immaculate condition as when it was published 0.4. Seller Inventory # 353-0312263937-new
Buy New
US$ 18.59
Convert currency
Seller Image
Skin Game
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Softcover
Quantity: 5
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 476030-n
Buy New
US$ 15.98
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Softcover
Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # ABLIING23Feb2215580106136
Buy New
US$ 15.11
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Softcover
Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # I-9780312263935
Buy New
US$ 20.00
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game (Paperback)
Published by
St Martin's Press, New York
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Paperback
First Edition
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Caroline Kettlewell's autobiography reveals a girl whose feelings of pain and alienation led her to seek relief in physically hurting herself, from age twelve into her twenties. Skin Game employs clear language and candid reflection to grant general readers as well as students an uncensored profile of a complex and unsettling disorder. "[This] mesmeric memoir examines the obsession with cutting that is believed to afflict somewhere around two million Americans, nearly all of them female," Francine Prose noted in Elle. "[Kettlewell's] language soars and its intensity deepens whenever she is recalling the lost joys and the thrilling sensation of sharp steel against her tender skin." As a young girl, Kettlewell discovered that the only way to find relief from overpowering feelings of self-consciousness and alienation was to physically harm herself. She has become the first person to tell her own story in a book about living with and overcoming the disorder known as cutting. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780312263935
Buy New
US$ 20.76
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0312263937
Buy New
US$ 21.88
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game: A Memoir
Published by
St. Martin's Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Paperback
Quantity: 1
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0312263937
Buy New
US$ 23.61
Convert currency
Stock Image
Skin Game
Published by
Griffin
(2000)
ISBN 10: 0312263937
ISBN 13: 9780312263935
New
Paperback
First Edition
Quantity: > 20
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. 1st. Special order direct from the distributor. Seller Inventory # ING9780312263935
Buy New
US$ 18.99
Convert currency