From jazz-blues artist Maggie Moor: Skinless—a voice-driven psychological thriller with the raw, poetic grit of Jim Carroll and the Beat Generation. Second Edition—Expanded & Revised.
Skinless is a literary psychological thriller told entirely in Charmay’s raw first-person voice.
“Maggie Moor has a voice unlike any I’ve ever encountered. Both hip and illuminating. A voice that lifts the mind to a place it’s never been.” — Kate Lardner, author
Stylistic note: Skinless is voice‑first and intentionally crafted. This novel is told as Charmay thinks and remembers: unfiltered first person, lyric fragments, and intentional tense shifts as memory collides with the present. Lyric fragments and purposeful tense shifts mirror trauma’s cadence. You’ll see the mother’s critical voice in italics and the stage persona “Cindy” clearly signposted. Grammar bends to rhythm and truth by design; lyrics and poetry noted. Some readers find it challenging, some find it immersive and musical.
Description:
Set in New York City around the turn of the millennium, Skinless follows Charmay, a young singer‑songwriter determined to transform pain into music. A survivor of sexual abuse and teenage homelessness-and now battling alcohol addiction-she builds a split survival: by night she is "Cindy," a poised, high‑earning stripper whose elegance and control open doors to elite clubs and powerful men. Cindy begins as armor-seductive, lucrative, dependable-but soon her confidence and appetites threaten to overwrite the self Charmay is fighting to preserve.
Three forces converge in the city's underground: producer Eddie Cruise hears fire in her voice and pushes her raw; Sam Black, a Miami‑raised son of Cuban-exiles, earns her fragile trust even as a vendettas with a privileged partner draws danger; Rex Raven, a Wall Street financier who wants Cindy-not Charmay-opens glittering doors-and traps. Family ties and flashbacks tug her toward the mask. Hustles collide. Masks switch places. Chaos ricochets: beats, bullets, bedsheets. By the final chorus, Charmay must choose-wear the mask that kept her alive or claim the honest voice that could set her free.
Unflinching yet compassionate, Skinless is a literary psychological thriller-and a portrait of a woman fighting to heal. For readers of The Bell Jar, The Basketball Diaries, Milkman, Just Kids, and literary noir.
