Episode #6: Skinless: Inside the Story : Spotlight: Meet the Players, Skinless World, Official Trailer
Episode #6 : Spotlight Characters: Meet the Players | Chapter Excerpts (no spoilers)
Editor’s Note (January 2025):
In its January 6, 2025 review of SKINLESS: The Story of a Female Survivor, BookLife writes that the novel “strips away pretense and sacrifices comfort for vulnerability,” following a life “saturated with abuse, addiction, and the exhausting work of simply existing.” For readers willing to inhabit Charmay’s chaotic interior landscape, they conclude, SKINLESS “offers something rare: a portrait of survival that doesn’t sanitize the mess.” Read the full review + find the book here:
http://booklife.com/project/skinless-the-story-of-a-female-survivor-103872
Welcome to Episode #6: Spotlight: Meet the Players…
A brief overview to get you settled into the story. . .
“An eloquent crime novel—street poetry renders the city in lush, sensual language and a heroine’s raw will to live.” — Foreword Reviews (Benjamin Welton)
Street poetry. Beauty. Danger. Survival.
At the turn of the millennium in New York City, fresh from teenage homelessness and childhood abuse, Charmay—a street‑smart, velvet‑voiced singer‑songwriter—develops a glittering alter ego, Cindy, to survive the PTSD she calls “skinless,” a raw vulnerability she drinks to numb and sings to soothe.
Over two turbulent years, chasing quick fixes and the American Dream, she’s pulled into a maze of small‑time hustles and crime that devolves into a dangerous game of secrets, lies, and power. Longing for her estranged father and the girl she once was, she clings to three men—and “Cindy”—for protection and hope, until hustles collide and masks ricochet into beats, bullets, and bedsheets, and it’s never clear who is really in control or who is using whom.
By the final chorus, Skinless becomes a strange evocation of turn‑of‑the‑century America—the times we live in and the forces we live by—as Charmay must choose between the mask that kept her alive and the honest voice that could make her whole.
Skinless is a psychological crime novel for readers of Milkman, Cherry, In the Cut, The Basketball Diaries, Harley Rosee’s Twinsgate, Lucy Treloar’s Days of Innocence and Wonder, and dark, character‑driven literary noir.
This Substack is a place for you to explore the themes, characters, relationsips, and music of Skinless. Free content.
Meet the Players
(Scroll down for in-depth character portraits and excerpts- or go with the slow burn of set up before we get there…)
There are many surrounding characters in the book, these are the main forces: a simple poster image to introduce you to the main players in the world of Skinless; “Meet the Characters.” As you read along this post, I will further illuminate. Stay with…
Other People’s Words: Goodreads & Amazon:
I’m honored and pleased to say that as of today, Skinless has 30+ reviews on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, with a 4.7star average. Thank you for your support.
To illuminate your understanding of Skinless’ inner world, told through Charmay’s eyes, I would like to share a response to the book through one particular reader’s eyes. I share this beautiful review (from a verified Goodreads/ Amazon reader) because I feel it well describes what you will find inside of the book, writing and story:
“Skinless” puts us inside the mind of Charmay
“I have read 25 novels per year for the past 40 years, more or less. I never wrote a review until now. One type of novel I seek out are author’s first novels. So, I dove into Maggie Moor’s first novel with an open mind and limited expectations - but by the end of the prologue, I had to pause.
“Whoa, this does not feel like a first novel, who the heck is Maggie Moor?” --- Google “Maggie Moor” and you uncover an actress, a Jazz Singer, an elite Fitness model competitor and a licensed psychoanalyst working with people who have been traumatized or addicted. Then it dawns on you, the author of this book is all four of those people plus, now, an author. Best I can tell, this is not sequential, Ms. Moor is living all of these lives simultaneously.
OK. That helped. This is no typical first time novelist.
Back to the book. Within the first few pages, the reader instinctively understands that this book is crafted like “The Catcher in the Rye” and “The Bell Jar” in the sense that we realize that the main character is narrating their own story. Neither Salinger, or Plath or Maggie Moor overtly tells the reader that the “voice” telling their story has arrived somewhere on the other side of the plot that is about to unfold but the reader grasps this right away.
Ms. Moor has taken this technique to a much more intense place than I have ever experienced before as a reader. Whereas Holden Caulfield and Esther Greenwood are recalling a chaotic time in their life with a single voice that benefits from time and reflection; Charmay in “Skinless” is showing us all of the voices inside her head and using sentences that are jumpy and twisting and convoluted in the way that our minds work in real time. Charmay’s “narration” is raw and instant and complicated. Salinger and Plath give us wonderfully crafted sentences. Ms. Moor gives us chaotic, broken sentences that have no benefit of reflection - she gives us a real internal voice and Ms. Moor is relentlessly consistent about this until the epilogue.
Did you ever wish you could read the mind of a beautiful and complicated woman in real time while you were in the room with her? Hah! Be careful what you wish for because Maggie Moor is the genie that somehow made that wish come true.
This is a thrilling and realistic story about living on the edge in New York City in the 1990’s told by a very compelling woman who is drop dead gorgeous and intelligent but otherwise a victim of mental and physical abuse that got dumped into the streets with only her wits to survive and she is very busy doing just that – surviving amidst the chaos of the streets and the chaos in her mind. Charmay has invented “Cindy” who is a successful stripper at those high-end gentleman’s clubs that sprang to life all over NYC in the 1990’s. It’s a great story with compelling characters but I did not write my first review ever because of that.
I wrote this review because this story is told entirely from inside the mind of Charmay, crafted in the moment, thinking and reacting in real time, using multiple voices (not personalities, except for Cindy, just voices) that comprise her very complicated personality and character. This is a writing exercise that would intimidate an author writing their 10th novel but Ms. Moor has pulled off this legerdemain gracefully, compassionately and compellingly. That’s why serious readers need to read this novel.”
— Mark McLaughlin, creator Where Y’at, AVL Music
Skinless Trailer
YouTube LINK: SKINLESS OFFICIAL TRAILER (below)
Songs from the Book: Music: The song in the trailer is one of mine : “Red Devil Trickery” by Maggie Moor (feat. Kenny Rampton).
In the book: Charmay writes and performs many songs. The compilation album Skinless: Songs from the Book, by Charmay and Maggie Moor drops 12.29.2025.
*“Red Devil Trickery” is not one she writes in this book. It is a song she writes in the subsequent novel (Book 2 of Charmay: New York Noir). That book is also coming soon (but not as soon as the Skinless album :)
https://charmay.hearnow.com/charmay
Prefer watching to reading? On all socials I also share short videos, reels, photos, and mini lookbooks that let you experience the inner lives and relationships of Charmay, Sam, Eddie, Jesse, and Rex, and give a feel for the streets, light, music, and grit of their turn-of-the-millennium New York City world.
Follow my (LINKS:) Instagram, Facebook or TikTok .
Handles:
Instagram.com/maggiemoor | Instagram.com/skinlessthebook
Tiktok.com/@maggiemoor
Facebook.com/maggiemoorofficial | Facebook.com/maggiemoorsongs | Facebook.com/skinlessthebook
Ok, back to the book on page:
Timeline & Main Locations
If you read the book, you will follow this timeline. (I use phrases like: “Swerve: backbeat” to signal a time shift.)
The story starts in a small studio sublet on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in 1999.
We flip back to 1998, when Charmay first meets Eddie Cruise, and when Sam and Charmay meet.
We return to 1999 to continue with the story, as Charmay pursues her music at home on her Mac laptop/ Mbox set up and on stage at Nightingales East Village Bar. Sam pursues his vendetta against Jesse at home and at Jesse’s thirteenth street four bedroom partyhouse/Buddhist temple. Rex pursues Cindy at Darling’s Gentleman’s Club in Tribeca and uptown at Hudson’s Grey Goose martini and oyster five star. Eddie bounces in and out of Nightingale’s to lead Charmay further into writing “songs she is too embarrassed to sing.”
The story progresses through Labor Day 2001.
Throughout the book Charmay returns to flashbacks from childhood, and forward to the healthier voice on the other side “today.” (More on the World as you read on.)
Meet The Players & Chapter Excerpts
I use in-story excerpts to bring you into the character’s way of being. (*You will notice that Charmay and Cindy are not here. For a refresh review:
SKINLESS: Inside the Story: Episode Spotlight #3: Meet Charmay
SKINLESS: Inside the Story: Episode Spotlight #4 Double Life: Cindy, alter-ego
Sam Black
Sam Black, a Cuban American aspiring filmmaker, bankrolls his ambitions by dealing drugs. Magnetic yet volatile, he and Charmay ignite downtown—even as he begrudges her stripping and their hustles test their bond. Obsessed with a vendetta against his born-privileged business partner, Jesse Boy.
Chapter Excerpts, illuminate Sam. . . (non spoiler)
Suggest: Refresh Episode #1 Chapter: Good Morning
“Where is that dang-nat—” he hopped ball-toe, cuffs up. “Man I gotta get back in the ring. Golden gloves, baby! I wanna coach kids and help people out the way they did for me back in Miami!” Sam went swinging at air, “Whambop a-round.”
Sam set to blindly moving about his couch entertainment jungle, grabbing and turning upside down every holy plastic-red-capped bottle of Afrin nasal spray, scattered. Glass bongs, scads mobile devices on charge, lighters, purple, yellow, red twenty, fifty-, one-hundred-dollar empty zip baggies, an electric shrink wrapper, two scales (like the kind you weigh a frog in biology). Vases; there were several multi-colored, hybrid bouquets of blossoms, cards with sparkly hearts, written in Sam’s scrawl. Sam did this surprise bell whistle shazam about a couple of times a week. I had gotten hip to—Sam laid these gifty-gives when he’d done something in the world he didn’t feel good about. Sport in some broken finger, cracked rib: “Someone cut my line at the deli. I smacked a cabbie.” I figured, Sam just needs to get back in the ring. Golden Gloves boxer at sixteen, in Miami. And, it’s true, some people do need to get popped in the face every once in a while. I admired Sam—him real refreshing.
Chapter Excerpt:
Sam dolloped paternal, “Jess, you always meet the girls first before you give ’em any. I teach you everything I know, and I specifically told you not to work with suburban fuckin’ rich twerps. For that, son, you deserve to be swept. Hang on…”
Sam hung—flagged fast his other vibrating cell.
“Pappy!” Yelped spitfire Spanish/Eng to his main distributor. “Yo, I got three goose for you. S., hombre bro, lo tengo buen rey cosas mexi su i llegar a buen precio. Wait, wait, hold on, man. —I know, I know, you need more. I got ’em coming. Now. The best. Lemme call you back.”
Sam, to his Queens Kid, “Sonny, my boy. You run ’em uptown tonight. I’m on the phone with the guy now. Goose, no floats—You come straight, me. Gots?”
Scribble-lyrics listening I was to Sam stoking business, I was happy like a harpoon rocket.
We finally had a plan. Together. See, Sam had a script. I had some songs.
“Got more talent in his pinky than most guys,” this big writer/producer from HBO kept telling Sam.
It was true; everyone got jazzed when Sam pitched his story. Sam waved his arms, practically foamed at the mouth, acting each scene dynamic. It was all about his Cuban family—fleeing Fidel, parents rafting to the states with three kids, growing up in Miami. This producer guy at HBO said Sam could have a part on his show, Oz. But Sam kept waiting.
“Gonna go legit,” Sam’s bluster, “get my script made, play the lead.”
I don’t know what you think about all this. Maybe you write me off as a criminal type. I don’t know. I’m a survivor and I felt safer with Sam at that time than I had anywhere else. That was enough for me. Well, safer with Sam when at home.
Eddie Cruise
A famous musician and producer. Mercurial, introverted. Cruise appears at Nightingales East Village dive where Jesse invites Charmay to sing. Eddie shows interest in working with Charmay but requests she stop performing: hears gold—and grinds her raw for it.
Chapter Excerpts, illuminate Eddie Cruise (non spoiler)
Setting: Nightingales East Village Bar, first meet
I flipped a smile; cocked a hip; threw my trench back; pushed forward my quad—knee straight.
Cruise blinked, zipping his soft bass case. “Hey, man, y’know. Jason, is it? Jess?” Languid recovery—palm smoothing his hair—he eyed me. “Ah, yeah. Right. People do like something to look at. But I kinda come down here to disappear, you know what I mean.”
I heard my psycho-babble roll.roll, mouth-watery word‐blah: “I’d love to work with you—do anything, whatever you say—make a pop hit. Love your style—bass lines, groove.”
Not true. I’d only dreamt of small, smoky clubs. Didn’t want to be Mariah Carey. I did want a record. Cruise’s style —biggest industry name I’d met.
Cruise seemed put off. “Yeh, it’s the #ve strings. What’s your sound—cabaret?”
I shook—never heard that before. Speech‐fumble, I. Something about Vaudevillian ancestors, early jazz influences.
Poof. Jess: gone.
Cruise to me: “Nah, look—I don’t bullshit ya. Artists I want hit the gut of the people—put ’em back with their soul. Cabaret’s for show. Entertainment isn’t the artist.”
“You can mold me—push me,” I said the words I thought I was supposed to. “Your price, your plan? I’ll write new songs; I can change anything.”
Jess swooped with tequila shots. “Hey, hey! We c’n whip a stellar sound f’her. Right?”
Cruise waggled his Evian. “Nah. Mmm, she just don’t feel it.”
Mind scrambled: If you had any talent, he’d be begging you.
Cruise, scrolling his phone: “I got a flight. Whitney’s my animal right now. It’s a lot.” He turned away.
Jess followed. “Is Whitney okay, man?”
Rex Raven
A Wall Street foriegn exchange executive, well-bred. A depressed divorcèe. Rex becomes obsessed with Cindy—not Charmay—start setting ways to lure her in, every door a trap.
Chapter Excerpts, illuminate Rex Raven (non spoiler)
Rex was this guy I met at work, few months back. New York Darlings Gentleman’s Club.
It’s cool how we can dress anything up with money and make it shine. That’s what Rex wanted to do with me. Cindy I was at the club. Rex been coming in night after night, buying all my time, bringing me wine, better than the cheap champagne they served. Rex would begin, “You were standing, long legs, bare skin in G-thong, holding that brass pole on stage; the glass reflection of your statuesque, when I fell for you.” Dreamy eyed. Yikes-man.
Personally, I hate a person tells same stupid scene over and over. Like, OK, it happened once, neat-o, and what, next. Softee types like nostalgia, to revisit the, “oldies but the goodies,” Rex would say. Ugh. Old Rex loved recount details of first night he and me slash Cindy met, like his favorite Valentine’s romp.
His hat caught my eye first. A cashmere hat with a black band, and feather. He was chatting a gal. She’d just danced for someone else, pulling her blue glitter dress on overhead. Looked like she’d met Rex before, casual chit. No biggie. I’d seen him around Darlings a few times, past months, Rex. Didn’t know his name. Never stayed long, never chose one girl. I especially noticed his hat. Much as I liked the thing, I thought, kind of cavalier, him flaunting it inside. Gentleman’s clubs don’t usually allow brims worn, basic decency. Guy dapper enough to sport that class, ought to hold manners, remove it, I sussing detail to gauge character. His wrinkle-waist, floppy-like Pillsbury dough, I thought. Rust-thick chin.
My quick scan got eye contact mid-rap. Smiled right at him—and how round those pink cheeks under his brim. His hop toward me—
“Oh,” I stepped to ascend from the stage. His hand out, to help me down. I giggled, flounced like I had a poodle skirt, curtsied, that’s how Rex described it, twinkling. I thought, guy smiles too much: softee-symp
“Cynthia,” he was singing. Fat man’s taupe trench, double lemon pinstripe. Said we’d met before, gave me his card once, but—
“Well, I’m so glad to meet you now!” Cindy-I laughed.
Rex Revan—pronounced like the bird, Rex’s sur.
A Sade song came on. “Dance?” I sang.
His hat made me do it; I pushed him into a seat. Pulled the forest green cashmere off Rex’s top-bald head, put it on me. A seething, gay confidence that night, happy to be free—Jess feud had just heated up at home, left Sam in a snarl. His cash low; I liked an excuse to get back to the club: we needed woot.
For Rex, pulled my black satin gown down one arm, like an ’80s makeup ad, my hands-on hips, spun slow-mo in his hat, and gave a wink, smiling big over bare shoulder. Satin gown to skin, sailed hips winding guitar, towering him bare in black rhinestone G-string, patent stilts, a floor dance. Leaned lips to graze fat black mole Rex’s meaty flushed cheek, singing Sade his ear. In my face, I saw a strangely pointed tongue. Mr. Revan licking the rim of that thick plastic shot glass, tossing back neat bourbon.
“Makers?” glittered waitress bustier passed over my naked dancing shoulder.
“Rather Bookers, m’ lady,” he chuckled, I mused the shape of Raven’s tongue, pointing thing darting around. A fishtank of human study. Analyzing: what the shape of his tongue says about him? Hey, a gal has to stay interested in the course of eight hours of strangers, eh.
To me, a pointy-darting tongue read. . .
Jesse Boy
A Boston University graduate, well-bred son of a State Judge. Dreams of becoming a rock drummer legend. Becomes Sam’s business partner. Naive, addict. Introduces Charmay to Eddie Cruise. Introduces Sam to Charmay.
Chapter Excerpts, illuminate Jesse Boy (non spoiler)
I looked down: endless rows of ruby jewel break lights, my twelve-inch auburn Barbie fall still secured behind my bangs—and there was Jesse, carving beeline straight toward. Beside him I saw—slender lipped, spiked black, hook nose, tat shouldered, smoldering—the ‘I could go either way on anything at any time and wouldn’t show you for a minute which way that is or why, but try me’ kind.
We two slid into limbic resonance immediately—it’s like I found myself in a male body, me.
“Hey, Charmay!” Jesse, smoothly geeked out. “What are you doing here?” Jess chirped, squashing earshot low, side style, “That’s that chick-singer I found. Didn’t know a stripper. Hit’n that!”
My Colgate smile by day cover blown.
“Makin’ money—you?” Threw my best sarcastic smirk.
Swerve: backbeat.
SKINLESS
Though non-human, “Skinless” is a force that influences Charmay’s actions throughout. “Skinless” is what she calls her raw, vulnerability, usually coupled with PTSD flashbacks—sometimes appearing as the face of her critical mother from inside a candle flame or mirror, sometimes as her her own body sensations and inner mental lashings. Charmay drinks to soothe “Skinless,” and keeps it a secret.
Skinless World
A Lynchian current throughout NYC—haunting, colorful, illusory, darkly comic. . .
Surrounding her is a family out of true: parents who unsteady her; Wanda, five years ahead, aloof; Aidan, two years behind, at the crux of the storm. Hart, the uncompromising vocal coach, pulls her toward the mic until the truth shows through. In Sam’s orbit, Eric—a recent law grad itching to go into business—stirs the pot. Comic detours arrive via Doctor Ski, Sam’s psychologist who meets the couple once, and Doctor Doggie, the dog‑obsessed referral who sends Charmay sideways. Down in Miami, Sam’s Cuban‑American family—his parents and sister Barbie—spin a fun‑loving visit that barely hides the fractures. And Sam’s vendetta zeroes in on Jesse—a well‑educated son of a state judge, newly addicted as he chases a rock‑drummer dream, naive as a deer—putting their cash side hustle on a knife‑edge as his loyalty comes into question.
The city adds its chorus. At Lucky Strike, Rex Raven and his trio of associates hold questionable court while a pop singer and a little wicked man slip between sets. In a Tribeca loft, Director O., a power filmmaker, works the room to woo Charmay as Eric’s friends whirl through—and after the party, the NYPD pays a visit. At Hudson’s, Felp presides, Max the vampiric maître-d’ deadpans, Frank hits his cues, and a jazz singer scores the night. Elsewhere, at Darling’s Gentleman’s Club—where Cindy takes shape—Gil, ever loyal, offers dad‑like counsel; at Chanel, where Rex suits Cindy up, an associate fashions her armor; and at Fortunoff’s, Stringbean, the comic diamond rep, performs a sales routine to seal the deal for Rex and Cindy.
Across town, Sam and Charmay explore La Trapeze—a crisscross club of hidden fantasy—while the Morgan Hotel homes the late‑night Sam‑and‑Jesse scheme. A penthouse suite at the Peninsula glitters above it all; underground Brownies steams in the small hours. After hours at Nightingales, the East Village haunt, Hart pushes Charmay to the raw as Skinny on guitar and Bleu on bass lay down a pulse that follows her home, Jesse’s wide‑eyed college friends crowding the tables.
And through it all, family moves like silent snipers; Charmay muscles through her father’s abandonment as the inner voices swell. Woven through that chorus is a reflective voice—steady, lucid—speaking from the other side now, threading hope through the noise. But back in the story present, Charmay runs from Skinless toward Cindy for solace; in the desperate hours, she writes songs on New York City streets, fleeing surfacing shadows—figures from the past and Skinless flashbacks, PTSD flares that render her formless—tilting the present into a waking nightmare.
Yet that reflective line keeps time, offering spiritual ground born of metaphysical and hard‑earned experience. In the end, the click of Charmay’s heels on New York City pavement becomes the pickup into the next song.
“Skinless took me on an emotional rollercoaster. One minute I was angry, then heartbroken, then inspired. The writing is gorgeous but not overdone. It’s emotional in a way that sneaks up on you. I’ll be recommending this to everyone I know.” 5⭐️ — Goodreads
Read Skinless
If any of this speaks to you, step into Charmay’s world.
• Title: Skinless (Book 1 of Charmay: New York Noir)
• Themes: race, class, family abandonment, trauma, sexuality, spiritual growth
• You can find it here: Amazon / Goodreads / Barnes & Noble / The Strand
And if you read it, I’d truly love to hear what resonates—whether it’s a line about social moorings, a scientific/spiritual insight, a scene about class, a moment of abandonment that feels too familiar, or the small sparks of inspiration that show up in unexpected moments…
Read what other people say about SKINLESS & Leave your review:
Tune in next week Episode #7: SKINLESS: Inside the Story — Nonlinear World: How Fractured Time Mirrors Trauma, Memory, and Life.
You’re receiving “Skinless: Inside the Story”; Spotlights weekly through December 23.
This 8‑episode Substack series dives into the world of Skinless—Book One in the larger Charmay novel cycle—and the album Skinless: Songs from the Book. Each installment pairs a track (or group of tracks) with vivid chapter excerpts, showing exactly where the songs live in Charmay’s life: on stage, in fights, on street benches at dawn, in boundary‑breaking nights, and in the quiet aftershocks of trauma and desire.
Across the series, readers get:
• a guided walk through Skinless via 8 weekly spotlights and a Bonus Music episode (the backstory on how each track was first written, recorded (as Maggie Moor), and reborn under Charmay )
• a deeper look at Charmay’s evolution from girl‑voice and survival mode toward awakening and self‑possession
• a glimpse into Book 2 through future‑leaning pieces like “Awake” and “Spiderwebb”
Taken together, the 8 episodes form a bridge between page and studio—inviting you to experience Skinless as both a novel and a living soundtrack inside the larger Charmay series.