Size Zero (Visage Book 1)
Description
<p style="margin:0px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>"A somber, disturbing mystery fused with a scathing look at the fashion industry. </strong><strong>Mangin writes in a confident, razor-edged style."</strong><strong> - Kirkus Reviews</strong></p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways.</strong></p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion's biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend's New York City mansion.</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">This new evidence casts suspicion back on the former boyfriend, Cecil LeClaire. Now a monk, he is forced to return to his dark and absurd childhood home to clear his name. He teams up with Ava Germaine, a renegade ex-model. And together, they investigate the depraved and lawless modeling industry behind Cecil's family fortune.</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 14px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">They find erotic canes, pet rats living in crystal castles, and dresses made of crushed butterfly wings. But Cecil finds more truth in the luxury goods than in the people themselves. Everyone he meets seems to be wearing a person-suit. Terrified of showing their true selves, the glitterati put on flamboyant public personas to make money and friends. Can Cecil find truth in a world built on lies?</p><p style="margin:-4px 0px 0px;padding:0px;font-family:Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;"><strong>In high fashion modeling, selling bodies is organized crime.</strong></p>
Story Behind The Book
Three hours into last night’s happy hour, I struck up a conversation with the mixed-gender group of folks next to us. Quickly, we all dove into conversation on the familiar, hot-button topic of women versus men in outlooks on sex & dating. One of the guys in their group (whom I had never met before in my life) was not only agreed with all the guys’ points of view, he frequently doubled over laughing.
He and I then specifically asked two ladies in the group to scan the entire room. There were approximately one hundred total women in the bar. We wanted these two ladies to literally point out women that we two guys would not sleep with, if somehow those ladies made themselves available to either of us at end of the evening.
The two ladies quickly and correctly eliminated the obvious choices which was great - but not the point. The fact that they failed to realize that some women’s poor fashion choices – at least in their eyes - would not rule them out as sex options is not the point either.
In fact, the full point we’re trying to make didn’t occur from the analysis of any specific woman in that bar.
The point is, I had only met this guy minutes before yet he and I saw the same physical qualities in every woman. The two women making choices based on their opinions instead of our opinions attempted to argue us guys down. There were a handful of women in the bar that they thought we should see in the same light as they did.