An Autobiography of Skin A Novel

This magisterial, intimate look at Black womanhood "follows three women whose various traumas haunt them literally and metaphorically, as it explores what it means to be a Black woman in America today" (The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice).

A middle-aged woman feed slots at a secret back-room parlor. A new mother descends into a devastating postpartum depression, wracked with the fear that she is unable to protect her children. A daughter returns home to join the other women in her family waging spiritual combat with the ghosts of their past.

An Autobiography of Skin is a dazzling and masterful portrait of interconnected generations in the South from a singular new voice, offering a raw and tender view into the interior lives of Black women. It is at once a powerful look at how experiences are carried inside the body, inside the flesh and skin, and a joyous testament to how healing can be found within—in love, mercy, gratitude, and freedom.

LAKIESHA CARR graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and received her MFA at the Iowa Writers' Workshop where she was a Maytag fiction fellow and held the Jeff and Vicki Edwards post-graduate fellowship in fiction.  She is a journalist and writer from East Texas and has held various editorial and production positions with CNN, The New York Times and others. Her writing has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the DC Arts and Humanities Commission for non-fiction writing, Vermont Studio Center, and the Kimbilio Fellowship in fiction writing.