This post was originally published on Audible.com.
I devoured New Skin in all its absurd, horrifying, and compulsive glory. Like the reality TV that partially inspired the story, it was impossible to look away from the impending disaster I felt sure was coming, though at no point could I predict which direction author Sarah Wang would take me. I was thrilled to have the chance to ask her a few questions about the inspiration and motivation behind one of the most unique and surreal—yet, authentic—portrayals of a mother-daughter relationship I’d ever encountered.
The semi-toxic mother-daughter relationship in this novel is so vividly imagined. Where did the idea for these characters originate?
I put every feeling I’ve ever had about my own mother into the novel. I was compelled to write a story about two women who are equally bound by love and hate, which can’t be defined in easy language but can be portrayed in all its complexities in fiction. One film in particular by Michael Haneke also inspired some of the mother-daughter dynamics, The Piano Teacher, which is based on Elfriede Jelinek’s novel. The mother and daughter are tortured by each other but you also feel like they’re on an island alone together. It’s a blessing that they have each other and also a curse that they are stuck with the other person.
When I was an adolescent, I couldn’t wait to leave home and get away from the life I felt I was stuck in. Now I wish I had more time with my mother. I think about how much I would like to live with her again so that we could be together. Life can be strange that way, an inversion of what you want and what you have. The novel takes the span of my life with all its contradictions and condenses it into the story of two women’s lives over the course of a single year.
While not strictly a horror story, there is a definite body horror component to New Skin. What draws you to that topic?
I love stories that speak to the reality of the world we live in through extremes in fiction, like body horror. Fiction can often represent our lives most accurately. Body horror takes an abstract concept like terror and makes it visible, palpable, and visceral, eliciting real emotion in the reader. It takes a concept from your intellect and makes you feel it in your body. And on the other side, body horror is actually real life. I’ve seen a woman with breast implants that migrated from her chest up to her shoulder.
In the novel, Fanny is cast on the reality competition America Beauty Extreme. It feels like even amidst tell-alls about the dark truths of reality TV, it’s as popular as ever. Why do you think we keep getting sucked in to these stories, especially when they have to do with appearance or beauty?
Watching television is an escape from our own lives. Part of the enjoyment of that escape is observing other people who are doing worse than we are. The other part of that enjoyment is validation in seeing other people experience the same things we do—heartbreak, triumph, falling in love, disaster, collapse. Shows about beauty and appearance ride the razor’s edge between victory and humiliation. It’s exciting to see people on reality TV embarrassing themselves and inspiring when they get what they so desperately want or overcome their difficulties. When the people we’re watching on TV are purportedly living their real lives on the screen, that makes our engagement all the more thrilling. We’re all invested in our own appearances. We may not be able to admit how much we care about the way we look but when it’s someone else on TV, we can live out our own fears through theirs, like avatars.
