In My Skin: Memoir, A

Description:
'[Kate Holden's] road to recovery begins when she starts working in a brothel. The clients seem to fit the same distribution curve - brutish at one end, sweet at the other - but now that the trade is coming to her, she draws strength from the power of her allure, starts to take pride in her work, and discovers she's good at it. This surprising trajectory, along with its searing intellectual and emotional honesty and the quality of the writing, easily sets 'In My Skin' apart from most other my-substance-abuse-hell memoirs.' - 'The Independent' on Sunday 21/05/06. 'Her vivid narrative voice lends a gritty poetry to her tale of heroin addiction, half-hearted rehab and prostitution. The book's power to shock rests in its contrasts; the life Kate led during her 20s may have been unexceptional for many young women, but not for a pretty, intelligent, middle-class girl with a classics degree, a job in a bookshop and a loving family of liberal, politically aware academics. She conjures with glittering clarity the sense of invincibility that comes with the first taste of adult life, the belief that drugs can make love and art transcendent, the conviction that you are in control. 'In My Skin' is a compelling story of love and squalor that retains humanity and sympathy.' - 'The Observer', 14/05/06.

Review:
'In My Skin is the work of a stunningly talented writer who both graces and surpasses her material' The Guardian'

Author Biography:
KATE HOLDEN Kate Holden is accustomed to being summed up at a glance: arts graduate, history buff, middle-class daughter, dreamer, innocent. But she is a young woman who understands better than most the secrets that people keep hidden