Rumpled Still Skin

Imagine how it feels to go from sow's ear to silk purse or vice versa, how a body stretched to a new dimension never returns to its original mind. Rumpled Still Skin and Other Stories is a collection of ten prickly situations imagined to their extremes, thought-provoking and sometimes quirky short fiction that explores the motivations, insecurities, terrors, and delights of the plastic people—both the patients who get nipped and tucked and the beauty doctors who make it happen. Loosely themed around a setting of plastic surgery, the stories range from short to long, hilarious to terrifying, orderly to twisted, cerebral to dreamlike. Populated by a vindictive ex-face, a foul-mouthed rock star, a clown with a secret, an unappreciated female face lifter, a charismatic televangelist, two mismatched identical twins, a surgeon facing a perplexing lawsuit, an escaped genie, and a disillusioned perfectionist among others, enter into a fabulous world of surgeons and their clientele as they struggle with relationships, self-image, gender issues, deeper meaning, and, of course, aging and death. Authored by an oculoplastic surgeon, the medical and scientific details are for the most part accurate. However, these are not tales about your mother's plastic surgery but rather the human condition. Discover what doesn't begin to show on the glossy marketing photos or the made for television dramas. The way you think about the discipline, its practitioners, and its recipients may never be the same.