Maggie Moor- NYC- SKINLESS: The Story of a Female Survivor, Psychological Crime Noir-Book 1 of Charmay: New York Noir.
Skinless: The Story of a Female Survivor
Dark Psychological Noir with a jazz pulse, 1999 New York City.
Street poetry. Beauty. Danger. Survival.
“A deeply moving, deliciously weighty work of fiction… poetic, stream-of-consciousness prose. [Moor’s] gifts for introspection and observation make her the perfect lynchpin for the author’s subversion.” — KIRKUS REVIEWS
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.
URBAN HEAT. LITERARY NOIR. STREET POETRY.
Skinless is a visceral portrait of trauma, dissociation, and survival that subverts the noir genre into something intimate, unsettling, and fiercely human
BEAUTY. DANGER. SURVIVAL.
Hard-boiled but “skinless,” singing from hidden pain, Charmay is the orphan misfit survivor of the 1999 NYC underground. To navigate the predatory hustle of the city and a failing marriage, she hides behind Cindy—a glittering alter ego built to feel nothing. But as she pursues the American dream and dodges “family snipers,” her internal tormentor, Skinless, forces the past to the fore. Caught in a slipstream of small-time scores and secrets, Charmay’s identities collide. In a final, visceral fight to reclaim her soul, she must face the past she’s spent a lifetime outrunning.
THE EXPERIENCE
For fans of the visceral interiority of: In the Cut, Milkman, and the rhythmic grit of Cherry.
For fans of the cinematic atmosphere of: Lost Highway, Blue Valentine, and Exotica.
- SECOND EDITION: Expanded & Revised, November 2025.
- SERIES: Book 1 of the Charmay: New York Noir series. Each novel is a standalone experience.
- COMPANION ALBUM: Featuring Skinless: Songs from the Book by Artist Charmay & Maggie Moor. Lush downtempo, jazz, chill-out.
- SUBSTACK SERIES: Explore Skinless: Inside the Story for 9 episodes of bonus content and the world behind the novel.
Trade Reviews & Praise for Skinless
“A deeply moving, deliciously weighty work of fiction… poetic, stream-of-consciousness prose. [Moor’s] gifts for introspection and observation make her the perfect lynchpin for the author’s subversion.”
“Moor’s fiction debut strips away pretense and sacrifices comfort for vulnerability… Moor’s nonlinear construction demands active engagement from readers… For readers who love voice‑driven, psychologically layered fiction that doesn’t flinch, Skinless offers something rare: a portrait of survival that doesn’t sanitize the mess. That portrayal is uncomfortable, occasionally overwhelming, and undeniably powerful.”
— BookLife from Publishers Weekly
“Perhaps a book that is shelved as a must-read. Moor tells Charmay’s experiences with abuse and betrayal in stark, unsentimental prose… What stands out most is the emotional precision… The book doesn’t rush toward redemption; instead, it lingers in the messy, nonlinear process of survival… Skinless ultimately becomes a story about rebuilding selfhood after it has been systematically stripped away.”
“Most of the book’s sentences vacillate between beauty and despair… Skinless is an eloquent crime novel about a woman’s relentless desire to survive… her street poetry highlights the city’s colors and sensations in lush, sensual language.”
— Benjamin Welton, Foreword Reviews
“A humane, unsparing portrait—wringing hope from the drug‑drenched, sex‑soaked streets of 1990s New York City.”
— Danielle Ballantyne, Foreword Interview
“Lyrical and unflinchingly honest, Skinless is a psychological portrait of trauma, trust, and the courage it takes to face your own truth. Perfect for readers who love the raw brilliance of The Bell Jar and the restless energy of Kerouac.”
— Goodreads, 5‑star review
Enter the World . . Meet the Players, Hear the Songs, Watch the Reels
Charmay, Cindy, & Skinless
Charmay — The Artist
Hard-boiled but “skinless.” Writing songs from hidden pain.
The velvet-voiced “orphan misfit” of the 1999 NYC underground, forged in the fire of homelessness. Charmay arrives on the Lower East Side NYC to reclaim her voice. But the past screams through her lyrics, caught between an increasingly violent marriage and a transactional “father figure” who only sees her mask. To endure, she fractures: building Cindy, the glittering shelterer, to protect the exposed core she calls “Little Trash Girl” and “Rainbow Girl.” Music is the only place her broken selves can almost breathe as one—and the one thing she is desperate to save from the very machine she built to survive. As the lines between her identities blur, she must navigate an indifferent industry to protect the only thing she has left: her soul.
Cindy — The Siren
Cindy is Charmay’s “glittering body double”—an elegant, high-earning magnet for power. She glides through five-star hotels and Fifth Avenue boutiques, turning trauma into a high-gloss performance. While she appears to be a typical femme fatale, Cindy is a master of the “external gaze,” using seduction as armor to keep Charmay alive—until the persona begins to eat its creator.
SKINLESS— The Intrusive Tormentor
“Skinless” is Charmay’s internal antagonist—the raw nerve under every performance. It is a visceral “cursed antennae” that soaks up the wounds of the world, echoing her mother’s insults and sabotaging her future. In a stream-of-consciousness fever of fractured memories and sensory overload, Skinless forces the past to the fore, demanding to be faced before Charmay loses herself entirely.
Men, Power, and the Price of Protection
SAM BLACK
The Lover | The Hustler’s Ambition: A Cuban-American filmmaker bankrolling his art through the New York underground. Magnetic and volatile, Sam rages against entitlement while clawing for his slice of the American Dream. He and Charmay ignite in a fever of passion and “urban heat,” but his hunger for control turns their partnership into a dangerous game of love, ego, and betrayal.
EDDIE CRUISE
The Gatekeeper | The Catalyst: A legendary producer navigating an industry that “chews up its stars.” Mercurial and demanding, Eddie haunts the edges of Charmay’s world, pushing her to strip away the facade and sing from her “skinless” core. He offers the path to stardom, but the price is a raw honesty that Charmay isn’t sure she can survive.
REX RAVEN
The Patron | The Father Figure: A Wall Street mogul who lures Cindy out of the club and into a world of Chanel and “Harvard money.” To Rex, she is the perfect femme fatale; to Charmay, he is a transactional escape from her failing marriage. Their connection is a “deliciously weighty” hustle wrapped in romance, where the line between who is using whom—and who is being trapped—is never clear.
JESSE BOY
The Joker | The Catalyst: A judge’s son turned East Village drummer, Jesse is the thread that pulls the players together. Moving between the high-end and the gutter, he introduces Charmay to both her mentor and her tormentor. But as the “small-time scores” turn into high-stakes violence, Jesse proves that in the 1999 underground, even the naive have a price.
JAZZ-INFUSED NOIR NYC
“In each of us there is another whom we do not know.” — C.G. Jung
Skinless pulls you into a street-poetry rhythm—a fever dream where the vibrant energy of 1999 Manhattan masks a haunting, darkly comic underworld. From Chanel boutiques to Gentleman’s clubs, Tribeca lofts to basement jazz haunts, the lines between ambition and illusion blur.
THE CHORUS OF THE CITY
Across a landscape “off its orbit,” Charmay navigates a cast of grifters, suits, and “family snipers.”
- The Players: Producer Eddie Cruise pushes her voice to the raw; Rex Raven opens glittering doors that double as traps; and Sam Black offers a dangerous kind of trust.
- The Dives & Penthouses: From the steam of after-hours sessions at Brownie’s and the open mics of Nightingales to the high-contrast luxury of The Peninsula and the hidden fantasies of La Trapeze.
- The Darkly Comic: A chorus of “Drs.” and “Doggies,” vampiric maître-d’s at Hudson’s, and diamond reps at Fortunoff who treat the hustle like a performance.
THE INNER VOICES
Woven through the noise is a reflective, steady voice speaking from the other side of the trauma. But in the story’s present, Charmay is running. She writes songs in rock-bottom moments on New York City streets, fleeing the “Skinless” flashbacks and PTSD flares that tilt her life into a waking nightmare.
In the end, the click of Charmay’s heels on NYC pavement becomes the pickup into the next song.
The Voice on the Page
The Sound of Skinless
A lyrical, first‑person voice that breaks off, loops back, and collides with memory—pulling you straight into Charmay’s chaotic interior world. Told in raw, fragmented vignettes that mirror a mind struggling to hold itself together, Skinless refuses the neat comfort of conventional storytelling. Sentences snap, time folds, and the past bleeds into the present, creating an unvarnished portrait of life on the margins.
This is a novel that doesn’t just tell a story of survival; it makes you feel the neurological and emotional cost of it. Fiercely honest, uncomfortable, occasionally overwhelming—and undeniably powerful—for readers who want to feel the hit, not just read it.
The Music
From Songs to Story — Skinless: Songs from the Book
A companion album of lush downtempo, jazz, and chill‑out—the arc of the story written by Charmay in the novel.
“Skinless: Songs from the Book” features Charmay/Maggie tracks with New York jazz, blues, and rock legends:
• Girl (Maggie Moor feat. Kenny Rampton – Wynton Marsalis) • Secret Kisses (Charmay w/ Mark White – Spin Doctors) • Hello Echo Hush (Charmay w/ Mark White – Spin Doctors) • Strangled (Maggie Moor w/ Eddie Ojeda – Twisted Sister) • Muggy Sunday Afternoon (Maggie Moor feat. Kenny Rampton – version 1) • Charm Me (Charmay w/ Mark White – Spin Doctors) • Awake Still (Maggie Moor w/ Aaron Monroe – Missy Elliott) • Little Girl’s Eyes (Maggie Moor w/ George Naha – Aretha Franklin band)
Available on Apple Music, iTunes, Amazon Music, Spotify, ASCAP & BMI.
SKINLESS: Inside the Story : 8 Episode Spotlights + Bonus Content | Free Content
Skinless: Inside the Story is a 9‑part Substack series that takes you behind the novel and the companion album. Each short episode pairs scenes and songs with fresh commentary and excerpts—so you can experience Skinless as both story and soundtrack.
Maggie Moor - Artist Behind the Story
Maggie Moor is a New York City author, licensed psychoanalyst, and jazz-blues singer-songwriter. She is the creator of the Charmay: New York Noir series, featuring her debut novel, Skinless: The Story of a Female Survivor, and its companion album, Skinless: Songs from the Book, recorded with jazz and rock legends including Kenny Rampton (Wynton Marsalis) and Eddie Ojeda (Twisted Sister).
Moor’s “street poetry” noir is a visceral, first-person descent into raw interiority through the jagged paths of survival and artistry. Her psychological fiction, hailed as “undeniably powerful” by BookLife and a “must-read” by IndieReader, explores gritty depictions of the internal split, the blurred lines of performance, and the neurological cost of trauma in New York City.
A NYSED-licensed psychoanalyst with a Gradiva-nominated clinical thesis, Moor’s professional work focuses on PTSD and addiction; she is also the author of I AM: Mind and Body Union(Archway/Simon & Schuster). She is a national-level NPC athlete and has recorded with jazz and blues legends including David Sanborn and Richie Cannata.
Skinless Trailer (50sec)
Word on the Street
“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 makes 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 an obviously intelligent, obviously gorgeous protagonist who is 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.”
“Maggie Moor has a voice unlike any I’ve ever encountered—both hip and illuminating, a voice that lifts the mind to a place it’s never been.”
—Kate Lardner, author of Shut Up He Explained: The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid
“Skinless is a revelation. Meet Charmay. Skinless is also a revolution—of survival… In a word, Skinless is a stunner.” —Stacey Donovan, author of Dive and The Red Shoe Diaries book series
“Lyrical and unflinchingly honest, Skinless is a psychological portrait of trauma, trust, and the courage it takes to face your own truth. Perfect for readers who love the raw brilliance of The Bell Jar and the restless energy of Kerouac.” — Goodreads, 5★
“Raw, poetic, fearless. Voice cuts to the bone. An unflinching act of emotional courage; both visceral and lyrical. Will stay with me.” — Goodreads, 5★
“This book isn’t easy but it’s unforgettable. Charmay’s story is painful, messy, and beautiful. She’s not perfect, and that’s what makes her so real. Maggie Moor writes with such truth it almost hurts. Her words don’t feel like fiction; they feel like life. By the time I finished, I felt this strange mix of sadness and peace. Skinless doesn’t just tell you that you can survive, it makes you believe it.”— Baikinf, Goodreads Reviewer, 5⭐️
“Skinless immerses you in a voice. Duality between Charmay and Cindy…Like living in a story than just reading one.”—Goodreads
“So first person… she is speaking just to me.” —Tom Squitieri, Amazon reader
“Dripping with beautiful prose.” —Austin Macauley, Publisher
“Different and original… grabs you inside the mind.” —Vincent J. Wallace, author
“Images and life lessons stay with you.” — G.D. Barbara Hodge
“Noir-ish feel… hooked me right away.” — Antwan Floyd Sr., author
“Brilliant and superbly intelligent … a seamless weave of past, present, and future … deep self-reflection, personal empowerment, survival, and growth … I could not put Skinless down.” — Goodreads review