Skinny: A Novel

by Diana Spechler

Overview

“Skinnywill be my go-to recommendation all year for anyone who wants smart, endearing,beautifully written women's fiction." —Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of TheOne That I Want and Time of My Life

"Spechler…transcends melodrama and clichewith striking sensitivity and delicate touch." —Boston Globe

To escape thegrief she feels following her father’s death, twenty-six year old Brooklynite Gray Lachmann becomesa counselor at a summer camp for overweight children, where she discovers shehas her own demons to battle both emotionally and physically. In Skinny, the ambitious, accomplished, anddarkly  humorous second novel fromreader-favorite Diana Spechler—author of Who ByFire and acontributor to Rumpus Women Volume 1—a vividly realized cast of characters mustcome to terms with eating disorders, buried secrets, and the trials of growingup.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062020369
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	04/26/2011
Series:	P.S. Series
Edition description:	Original
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Diana Spechler received her MFA from the University of Montana and was a Steinbeck Fellow at San José State University from 2004 to 2005. Her fiction has appeared in Glimmer Train Stories, Moment, Lilith, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City.

What People are Saying About This

Allison Winn Scotch

“Add me to what is sure to be a very long list of Diana Spechler fans. Skinny will be my go-to recommendation all year for anyone who wants smart, endearing, beautifully written women’s fiction.”

Laura Dave

“Diana Spechler writes like a dream. In Skinny, she masterfully explores the relationship between food and pain, between love and heartbreak. And what Spechler most magically captures is the elusive feeling of longing. And how, on its other side, we sometimes find what we needed all along.”

Editorial Reviews

Instead of relating to her charges at a teenage weight-loss camp, 20-something Gray Lachmann studies them through the same empathy-free eyes with which she views herself in Spechler's shallow second novel (after Who by Fire). Feeling culpable in her father's death, Gray leaves New York and takes a job at Camp Carolina for the summer, hoping to lose the pounds she gained bingeing in her guilt and grief, and to also meet Eden, the girl she believes to be her stepsister, discovered via a mysterious bequest while executing her father's will. But Eden, a born loner who Gray assumes resulted from an extramarital fling, rejects Gray's efforts to open up. Gray's summer job does prove life altering, and not just physically: she distrusts the camp owner, begins to draw herself into the knotty social lives of her charges, and flirts with the athletic director. Affectingly narrated by Gray in a tone that often echoes pro-anorexia message boards, Spechler's latest succeeds in lovingly detailing the agony of self-loathing before it swings wildly into YA territory to teach Gray a lesson about life. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Add me to what is sure to be a very long list of Diana Spechler fans. Skinny will be my go-to recommendation all year for anyone who wants smart, endearing, beautifully written women’s fiction.” — Allison Winn Scotch, New York Times bestselling author of The One That I Want and Time of My Life

“Spechler’s meditation on the nature of hunger is both touching and surprising, as Skinny boldly explores the connection between our emotional and physical appetites. Her characters and their stories stayed with me long after I put her book down.” — Janelle Brown, bestselling author of All We Ever Wanted Was Everything and This Is Where We Live

“Diana Spechler writes like a dream. In Skinny, she masterfully explores the relationship between food and pain, between love and heartbreak. And what Spechler most magically captures is the elusive feeling of longing. And how, on its other side, we sometimes find what we needed all along.” — Laura Dave, author of The Divorce Party and London Is The Best City in America

From the Publisher

Spechler’s meditation on the nature of hunger is both touching and surprising, as Skinny boldly explores the connection between our emotional and physical appetites. Her characters and their stories stayed with me long after I put her book down.

Janelle Brown

Diana Spechler writes like a dream. In Skinny, she masterfully explores the relationship between food and pain, between love and heartbreak. And what Spechler most magically captures is the elusive feeling of longing. And how, on its other side, we sometimes find what we needed all along.

Laura Dave

Add me to what is sure to be a very long list of Diana Spechler fans. Skinny will be my go-to recommendation all year for anyone who wants smart, endearing, beautifully written women’s fiction.

Allison Winn Scotch