Skin, by Adrienne Maria Vrettos

If you pull out the plug from a sink full of water, the water swirls down the drain, slowly at first, not necessarily noticeable, but with accelerating force.

The family in the novel Skin, by Adrienne Maria Vrettos, pulls out their own plug, and their family life inexorably goes down the drain. All of them try hard to get a hold, but they are lost in the swirls and gravity of their own family dynamics.

The trigger of their fall is the hostile relationship between the parents. Although they seem to try, they cannot accept each other’s weaknesses. Their fights dominate the family life so much that there is not enough room for the children, Karen and Donnie, who create the ritual to spend the time of their parent’s fights on the door steps and to comfort themselves with macaroni afterwards. But neither can the doorsteps sufficiently distance the children from the malady of their family nor can macaroni replace the attention of their parents. Karen develops anorexia and Donnie becomes “invisible” in another sense. He hardly talks and does not take care of himself. At the end of the book, the relationship of the parents is destroyed, Karen starves herself to death, yes, literally, and Donnie? All of a sudden, the most passive family member throughout the book refuses to be swirled down the drain with everybody else. Will he manage to place the plug back in place?

Skin is a good novel to read for both teenagers and adults because it shows the entangled and complex reciprocations of family conflicts from multiple perspectives. It shows how the conflicts of each member has an impact on the health of the whole family, and it makes diseases, such as anorexia, understandable. Although the family in Skin gradually destroys themselves, it is a hopeful book that encourages the reader to take responsibility for one’s self.