New Skin

Horror, crime, and coming-of-age genres collide wildly in Sarah Wang's inventive and brilliant debut novel - Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick and The Four Spent the Day Together

When Linli Feng returns home to LA after three years' absence she is aghast at what she finds. Her mother, Fanny, is unrecognisable. In her endless quest to achieve the 'right' kind of beauty, Fanny has spent the intervening years having bargain procedures in the basements of LA's bootleg beauty parlours. Now Fanny's disfigured face is in dangerous revolt, infected, and collapsing from black-market injectables.

But even as Linli tries to wean Fanny off her addiction and wades through the wreck of her mother's finances, Fanny has another secret in store. She has won a spot on America's Beauty Extreme, a reality television competition in which botched plastic surgery addicts compete for reconstructive surgery as riveted audiences tune in.

When Linli attempts to rescue her mother from the sinister subculture that has already claimed her face, she must at last confront the corrosive reality of the American dream that lies at the very heart of their relationship.