The Flawless Skin of Ugly People: A Novel [Paperback]

Doug Crandell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 18, 2007

Thanks to Ugly Betty, America is finally ready to read a love story about a couple who isn’t sleek, slick, tucked, pulled, or plastic.
 
Do we have to be beautiful to be loved?  Hobbie—this novel’s darkly romantic hero—has been banished to homely man exile in the North Georgia Mountains, where his enemies are mirrors and bears.  Things are not going well for Hobbie.  His skin?  Pizza Face, super-sized, with extra pepperoni and pitted olives.  Job status?  Former bank teller.  Love life?  His common-law wife Kari has gone AWOL at a weight-loss clinic in North Carolina.
 
But just as it seems Hobbie is doomed to go through life as a sweet, self-pitying “anonymous joke,” he jumps out of his skin and becomes downright heroic.
 
Can Hobbie rescue Kari from the weight-loss clinic?  Can he pull his fractured family together?  Plastic surgery—will he or won’t he? Will love endure if Hobbie’s skin clears up, Kari drops pounds, and ugly people become flawless? Readers won’t be able to put the book down until they find out.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hobbie, the narrator of this endearing debut novel, prefers the company of his beloved mutt, Terry, to the companionship of most humans. Hobbie, who has a blistering case of chronic acne, and Kari, his obese girlfriend of 20 years, continually aggravate their situations: Hobbie picks at and further inflames his bad skin while Kari eats in response to a shared tragedy from their youth. When the novel opens, Kari's ensconced at a weight-loss clinic hundreds of miles from their temporary north Georgia home, and Hobbie lives like a hermit until he's attacked by a bear. While recovering, he's sucked into the messy world of Kari's father, Roth, and slowly, clumsily becomes part of Roth's family once Kari goes missing from the clinic. Crandell has an exquisite eye for small details—Kari's letters home are written on lined paper, the same kind we wrote love notes on—that lend a tender feel to what could easily be overwrought. Though the novel turns on some unconvincing plot twists (particularly in the concluding section), the characters and situations are so simultaneously moving and unique that a bit of contrivance doesn't sink this tale of misfit love. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Doug Crandell’s short stories and essays have appeared in numerous magazines, including Smithsonian, Atlanta Magazine and Writer’s Digest and his two non-fiction books were published by small presses.  Flawless Skin, his first novel was a finalist for the William Faulkner Prize.  Crandell lives in Marietta, Georgia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 211 pages
• Publisher: Virgin Books (September 18, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753512998
• ISBN-13: 978-0753512999
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,456,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Doug Crandell is the author of six books, one of which beat out former President Jimmy Carter for the Georgia Author of the Year Award. Doug's novel, The Flawless Skin of Ugly People has been optioned by Big Talk Productions, with Jack Thorne writing the screenplay and James Griffiths set to direct.

Doug has won grants and fellowship competitions from the Sherwood Anderson Foundation, the Hohenberg Foundation, and the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. Booker Prize Winner, Peter Carey, chose Crandell's story, Even if He is a Slave, for the River City Award in Fiction. Doug is a frequent contributor to the venerable SUN Magazine.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads Like a Movie in Your Mind, September 22, 2007

By 

S. Hall (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Flawless Skin of Ugly People: A Novel (Paperback)

Crandell writes so well that some will miss the profound importance of this important work of fiction exposing the reality of our societal constructs of beauty. While dermatologists will rave about how Crandell has been the one to write so beautifully about what they have been trying to communicate to patients and the unconcious public, this book gives us a Beauty and The Beast story like nothing before it. Or does it really? I don't think so. You see the title is for us for our own story, because I just can't find an ugly person in The Flawless Skin of Ugly People, but when I finished the book, it seems like they were all around. Ah, but so were so many more beautiful people that I had been missing all along. Thank you Doug Crandell for Hobbie and the new prescription, I see so many more beautiful people now. Please continue to write books that people can't put down.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To Hell with the Devil, November 14, 2007

By 

Buddy Lee (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Flawless Skin of Ugly People: A Novel (Paperback)

Any novelist (first-time or otherwise) who has the shells to (straight faced) evoke Ratt's "Round And Round" for poignancy, and then, just for good measure (and without irony, mind you,) drag in the yellow-and-black-attack of God-Metalists, Stryper, is fine by me. Because, you see, not only do I have that Ratt LP on vinyl, I have the first issue of "To Hell With the Devil" with the controversial artwork featuring a winged and hyper-muscular Michael Sweet et al giving Lucifer a guitar enema. But I digress.

The Flawless Skin of Ugly People also features one of the most cringe-inducing (and I was raised on Stephen King,) and painfully prolonged scenes of self-mutilation I've ever experienced. Equally disturbing is the scene of a child's sexual molestation - only this time it is the brevity and, damn it, the banality that gets under the skin and stays with you. (Crandell pulls off a feat only the most accomplished of novelists manage - I found myself incorporating the protagonist's experiences into my own subconscious. Hence the high shudder factor.)

Sure, it'll make a great movie, but bring on the soundtrack!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Soon to be a Major Motion Picture, December 7, 2007

By 

Cary C. Griffin "cgriffin" (Florence, Montana) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Flawless Skin of Ugly People: A Novel (Paperback)

Denver's Rocky Mountain News declared Doug Crandell the new J.D. Salinger. Sir Richard Branson saw the talent in this brilliant writer and signed him as Virgin Publishing's inaugural author. What do these folks know that you don't? That Doug Crandell's writing is unpredictable, and that he writes out-loud what our inner voice speaks in whispers. And while our voice is muted by shame or decorum, Crandell's characters push through the polite public veneer with funny and touching regularity. The Flawless Skin of Ugly People follows Crandell's two wonderful memoirs of his youth in Indiana, and one wonders if this isn't just the culmination of a Heartland trilogy. For me, a kid who grew up fat with acne, the writing and dialogue is authentic, hopeful, and never contrived. Anyone with an ounce of compassion in their souls will recognize Crandell's as the voice (some are lucky enough to hear) saying "hey, it's gonna be alright, you'll see." This is another brilliant offering from Doug Crandell. I can't wait for the next one!