- Hardcover: 192 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press; First Edition edition (July 9 1999)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312200110
- ISBN-13: 978-0312200114
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 14.4 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 381 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,036,913 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Amazon
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 Publishers Weekly
Following last year's A Bright Red Scream by journalist Marilee Strong, Cutting by psychotherapist Steven Levenkron and Bodily Harm by self-injury treatment program directors Karen Conterio, Wendy Lader and Jennifer Kingson Bloom, this memoir is touted as the first personal account of compulsive self-mutilation. However, Kettlewell's story leaves more questions unaddressed than it answers. Having regularly cut her body with razor blades for most of her life, at age 36 she does not seem to have enough distance from her actions to fully understand them. Searching for a reason for her behavior, she writes about the distress and anxiety she felt during most of her childhood in rural Virginia, where her educated Northern parents were rarities. Unsure if her misery was justified, Kettlewell never talked about it, instead escaping by cutting her arms and legs, which allowed her to focus only on the present moment, the certainty of blood and pain. She still doesn't know whether she is entitled to the mental anguish she continues to suffer, and the bulk of the book, by detailing her misery, simply begs the question.We learn surprisingly few details about her lifeAa first marriage is summarized in a few sentences; her eating disorder in a few pages; her parents, second husband and child are never fully characterized. The text jumps repetitively and illogically between episodes, occasionally registering confusion at the level of the sentence structure ("Which one of us did I lie to protect?" is typical), and rife with maudlin metaphors and similes ("summer fell across my lap like a corpse"). Although Kettlewell's story shows courage in the writing, it will make most readers feel like voyeurs. (July)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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First Sentence
One February day in the seventh grade, I was apprehended in the girls' bathroom at school, trying to cut my arm with my Swiss Army knife. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
One February day in the seventh grade, I was apprehended in the girls' bathroom at school, trying to cut my arm with my Swiss Army knife. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cuts both ways,
By A Customer
This review is from: Skin Game: A Memoir (Paperback)
Believe it or not, there really hasn't been enough written on the idea of self-mutilation. I recently read CUT and thought that also to be well-written and to the point. Kettlewell writes beautifully about a subject that may be a turn-off to those who don't understand. For those who know first hand about this phenomena or for those who seek first to understand, this book is a must. If you're looking for another riveting and completely shocking memoir (this one about repressed memories and child abuse) try McCrae's THE BARK OF THE DOGWOOD.Also recommended: A Bright Red Scream
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Choice was mines...,
By
This review is from: Skin Game: A Memoir (Paperback)
I finish reading Kettelwell's "Skin Games" It only took me about two weeks to read it. I have to say, I didn't like in the beginning when she refer to her scars as "Sins" but I did like how she threw in the whole Southern experience, "Scarlett O'Hara" and "Gone with the Wind," I'm a sucker for that culture.Kettlewell writing is a little strong for me. She made me, the reader, feel benith her; She uses such words expressing her cutting that to the mind of an English teacher would understand, but to the simple minded reader...she needed to use small words...She jumps from first person point of view to third persons. She writes of her life as a long script. She is the actor and this is her play. Such as her first wedding date when she writes "I show up on the Church's lawn, Half hour before it all begin. I came in shorts and a shirt, and I had my wedding dress thrown over my shoulder..." She's done research that can be apply to her own personal life. She writes about how she had to lie to tell people about her cutting, as "Did tell a lie to keep myself happy, or did I tell it not to worry them?" In the end, she brought everything together, when she writes "I stop cutting because I always could have stop cutting; that the pain and inelegant truth. No Matter how compelling the urge, the act itself was always a choice. I had no power over flood tite of emotions that drove me to that brink, but I had the power to decide whether not to step over. Eventually I decided not to......You have to make your journey, and bear its scars" I think that is so true and cleverly written. Its myself who is cutting and this is hard to admit. I am the one who is holding the razor to my flesh, and I am the one who cleans it up afterwards. I can't blame it on no one but myself. I don't have control over people's though, words and actions that can sometimes lead me to cut, but I am the one who is doing it. I can't (yet) control my thoughts and emotions, but I can control my actions. The choice was mine, and mine completely. I could have any prize that I desired. I could burn with the splendor of the brightest fire, Or else, I could choose time. Its like once you put your hand in the flame you can never be the same. There's a certain satisfaction in a little bit of pain. You learn form that. Life is a learning experience. So I actually took something away from Kettlewell Story. Granted it might not have been what I wanted...but its something that I always knew.
2.0 out of 5 stars
This book went nowhere,
By Liz H. Catt "Liz" (Atlanta) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Skin Game: A Memoir (Paperback)
Memoir is one of my favorite genres, but this book was so disjointed I just couldn't get into it. The author throws in random chapters in her life but never explains how they relate to her cutting. She never explains what events motivate her to take a razor to her skin. A memoir is supposed to be intimate, but in this book the author as an adult seems so detached from her adolescent self. If she doesn't know what made her cut, why did she write a book about nothing? There are no epiphanies here. Also the book is written in an annoying College English Term Paper "Look at me" style. (Too many similes, metaphors, cutesy modifiers, etc.)Completely uninspiring. I give 2 stars because I enjoyed the chapters about growing up in Rural Virginia. For a good memoir, read "Angela's Ashes" or "Even Dogs Go Home To Die."
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