Episode #8: THE AMERICAN DREAM (WITH THE SKIN TORN OFF)
Spotlight: Race, Class, & The Family Sniper
“In each of us, there is another whom we do not know.” — C.G. Jung
In the 1999 Lower East Side, the “other” isn’t just a psychological split—it’s the divide between who we are and who we must pretend to be to survive. SKINLESS is an x-ray of the American Lie: the brutal friction between those born with safety and those who have to perform for it.
THE DOSSIER: THE ARCHITECTURE OF ABANDONMENT
Sam: Immigrant Rage & The Outsider’s Hustle
Sam is a Cuban-American dreamer whose family fled Castro only to find a new kind of cage in the States. He’s a high-rolling pot dealer resenting the “suburban entitlement” of his partner, Jesse. For Sam, power is something you take because it was once stripped away.
The "Blue-Eyed" Betrayal
The most clinical abandonment in Skinless happens at the dinner table. Charmay’s father, obsessed with the pseudoscience of The Bell Curve, chooses his blue-eyed stepsons over his own brown-eyed children.
“I still can’t believe I had kids with that woman and they all came out brown-eyed,” he declares. It’s an ideological rejection that places his own kids at the bottom of a cold, genetic hierarchy.
The Chanel Armor
Class in Skinless is a costume. Enter Rex: the wealthy patron who wants to "polish" Charmay into Cindy. He buys the Chanel and the five-star dinners, oblivious that he’s only funding a mask.
“It isn’t even me Rex wants. It’s her: Cindy. The Graceful. When he gets wind of the 'dirty bag laundry girl' I am at home... he would bolt.”
“Perhaps a book that is shelved as a must-read… Moor tells Charmay’s experiences with abuse and betrayal in stark, unsentimental prose… — IndieReader
VOICE FROM THE SHADOWS: CHAPTER EXCERPTS
On the "All One Color" Myth:
“My mother says she 'doesn't see color,' while complaining her husband brings home his mother's fried chicken and grits. I wanted to scream: Some people have been beaten down since childhood for no other reason than their skin color. It carves a gash; an undying hurt lurking beneath all things.”
On the "Trash Girl" vs. The American Dream:
“I learned at a young age: my sex is powerful. The real world was no place to express attraction, but the strip bar was. I always walked with cash—so I’d never be homeless again. I was 'Trash Girl' needing protection, so I built 'Cindy' to take up space.”
“Lyrical and unflinchingly honest... a must-read.” — IndieReader
THE DOSSIER: WHY I WROTE SKINLESS
The world of SKINLESS ricochets between the LES clubs of 1998 and the high-gloss traps of 2001. It’s a landscape of The Sopranos on the TV, Walther PPKs in the drawer, and early Apple computers reshaping music.
But underneath the New York noir and “Dr. Doggie” satire, this book is for the “Skinless”—those who feel overexposed, raw, and unprotected—trying to grow a new kind of skin made of truth instead of lies.
THIS STORY IS FOR YOU IF:
You’ve felt class shame or the pressure to fake a persona just to be allowed into the room.
You’ve watched race and power shape who gets softness and who must always be hard.
You’ve been abandoned by family or told in a thousand ways that you don’t belong.
1999 NYC: A haunted singer hides behind Cindy—a glittering body double with an iron will and velvet tongue. When the mask begins to eat its creator in a visceral fever of violence and betrayal, she must face “skinless” to reclaim her soul.
THE FINAL CHORUS: BEYOND THE MASK
Skinless concludes not with a neat ending, but with a crescendo. It is a story of spiritual evolution—of a woman moving through the wreckage of abandonment to find the “honest voice” that finally makes her whole.
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THE JOURNEY CONTINUES.
The Charmay: New York Noir cycle is just beginning. Stay tuned for exclusive glimpses into Book 2, as Charmay navigates the international shadows of a post-9/11 world.
Stay on the other side of diminished.
~ MM
Stay Skinless: Go Bonus SKINLESS MUSIC: The Story Inside the Songs
And she returns, again, to that Jung line:
“In each of us there is another self we do not know. There is a formless form that wants to make itself form.”
That “other” self is what Skinless chases:
the self underneath the trauma, the roles, the race/class scripts, the family lies;
the self who might be capable of love, art, and meaning beyond survival.
Next Episode: Bonus SKINLESS MUSIC: The Story Inside the Songs
Skinless: Inside the Story. Join the evolution of Charmay: New York Noir. Subscribe free.