Cover design by Tom Etherington
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A Time Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and New York Public Library best book of the year.
Read the opening of the book at Electric Literature. Read an excerpt on what it means to live a childfree queer life in Autostraddle. “In her introduction, Shapland refers to the ability of the essay to do anything or go anywhere as a part of her love for the form—and in the essays that follow, she shows us she meant it. A wrenching, loving and trenchant examination of feminism, nuclear power, healthcare, queerness and American life unlike any I can think of, in essays that give lessons in pushing this form to the limit. The resulting collection is iconoclastic, electric, illuminating, and the honesty and art in these essays bring with them a series of welcome awakenings. A book to keep for a long time.” -Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel “Thin Skin is a searing and translucent text, personal and collective, showing how porous we are, how vulnerable we are and how strong like Earth itself. Our bodies and the body of the land are inextricably linked. And still, we forget the violence that continues to sicken us both. Such an important and visionary book.” —Terry Tempest Williams, author of The Hour of Land |
"Thin Skin reclaims cultural sensitivity as a truth-telling and healing force."
-LA Times
“Breathtaking in their sharp synthesis of a variety of ideas and experiences, Shapland’s essays are a truth-telling balm for mind, body, and spirit. An eloquent and vibrantly lucid collection.”
-Kirkus, starred review
"Shapland explores the porous boundary between the individual and the wider world in these exhilarating essays....This is a gem."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Thin Skin confirms that Jenn Shapland is one of the most exciting American writers working today. She simultaneously crisscrosses and dissects topics as enormous as personhood, colonization, and climate change with such virtuosic verve and control I’m still marveling over how she does it. Thin Skin expands our sense of what essays can be and do.”
-Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
“Jenn Shapland's mind is a marvel. In Thin Skin, she puts it to work on our permeability to one another, and the result is a stunning, urgent, and layered consideration of our climate-catastrophe, pandemic-laden day. As each essay considers vulnerability in a different form, Shapland proves herself a brilliant and compassionate guide through loss and the enduring need to find hope. She offers no easy answers, but something far more valuable: deeper, more acute understanding—the best kind of balm.”
-Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body
“This book is a miracle! Whether writing about her migraines, ‘karens,’ the environment, Buddhism or deciding not to have children, Shapland takes on each subject with tenderness and depth. Every essay roams in a wild and thrilling way, holding to the author’s own spiritual advice, to yield again and again and to both accept and ‘indulge the universe.’”
-Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count Diary
“A visceral exploration of the thin membrane between the self, the body, and the systems that control them.”
-Katherine May, author of Wintering
-LA Times
“Breathtaking in their sharp synthesis of a variety of ideas and experiences, Shapland’s essays are a truth-telling balm for mind, body, and spirit. An eloquent and vibrantly lucid collection.”
-Kirkus, starred review
"Shapland explores the porous boundary between the individual and the wider world in these exhilarating essays....This is a gem."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review
“Thin Skin confirms that Jenn Shapland is one of the most exciting American writers working today. She simultaneously crisscrosses and dissects topics as enormous as personhood, colonization, and climate change with such virtuosic verve and control I’m still marveling over how she does it. Thin Skin expands our sense of what essays can be and do.”
-Jeannie Vanasco, author of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl
“Jenn Shapland's mind is a marvel. In Thin Skin, she puts it to work on our permeability to one another, and the result is a stunning, urgent, and layered consideration of our climate-catastrophe, pandemic-laden day. As each essay considers vulnerability in a different form, Shapland proves herself a brilliant and compassionate guide through loss and the enduring need to find hope. She offers no easy answers, but something far more valuable: deeper, more acute understanding—the best kind of balm.”
-Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, author of The Fact of a Body
“This book is a miracle! Whether writing about her migraines, ‘karens,’ the environment, Buddhism or deciding not to have children, Shapland takes on each subject with tenderness and depth. Every essay roams in a wild and thrilling way, holding to the author’s own spiritual advice, to yield again and again and to both accept and ‘indulge the universe.’”
-Darcey Steinke, author of Flash Count Diary
“A visceral exploration of the thin membrane between the self, the body, and the systems that control them.”
-Katherine May, author of Wintering