Getting comfortable in her own skin
Comedy and tragedy: For actress, producer and TV writer Laura Chinn, they both begin with zits.
“I wasn't aware of my face until there was something suddenly wrong with it. A small, white ball popped out of my right cheek and then, like magic, I realized I had a face,” Chinn writes in the opening of her new book, “Acne: A Memoir” (Hachette).
But Chinn's story — equal parts funny and poignant, often R-rated and always compulsively readable — is much more than a mere chronicle of ongoing battles with a skin condition. This coming-ofage memoir explores how a young woman forges her identity and learns to accept herself — and others — in a world that tells her there's nowhere she belongs.
Chinn, the daughter of a Black father and White mother, grew up in a divorced family of sometimes ardent, sometimes not, Scientologists. Bouncing between a chaotic life in Clearwater, Florida — with her mother; her mother's mute, alcoholic boyfriend; and an older brother with a brain tumor — and her philandering father's Burbank apartment, she navigates a rough public high school and little to no adult supervision with a feral pack of friends from likewise disenfranchised homes. Obviously gifted, she nonetheless drops out of school — waylaid by grief, exhaustion and sheer lack of support.
Yet against crazy odds, she ends up settling in Los Angeles and succeeding: First as a working actress stringing together a living via bit parts on commercials and shows like “Grey's Anatomy,” then as a comedy scribe in a writers room full of Ivy League graduates, and finally as a producer of her own show on Pop TV, the short-lived cult favorite “Florida Girls.”
Chinn will join the Aug. 19 lineup of
Southern California News Group's virtual program “Bookish” to talk to audiences live, but meanwhile, she chatted with us via email about the new book.
Q“Acne” is the name of your memoir, but it also becomes a metaphor for feeling good — or not feeling good — in your own skin. Is acne what began your idea for the memoir?
AI've always wanted to write a memoir but I didn't know where to start. My life has so many seemingly random events that I didn't know how to write about it without it feeling all over the place. When I began looking at how much acne was a constant presence during all the random chaos, I realized that it could be a through-line to make the book feel more unified. Also, I was so afraid to talk about my skin — I had so much shame about it — so writing about it seemed like it would be extremely cathartic, and it was!
QRace and class are deep themes in this book. Was one of the aims of your book to inspire others?
ADefinitely! I've been inspired by so many memoirs: Maya Angelou's, Tina Fey's, Michelle Obama's, Steve Martin's, to name a few. Hearing their stories and the challenges they overcame meant so much to me. I've always hoped that writing about my experiences could make other people feel less alone.
QFans of your show “Florida Girls” will recognize many of the elements from the show in your life story — below-the-poverty-line living, the drinking, the sex, but also the incredibly feisty band of girls who strive for a better life. What did you want the memoir to do that the show couldn't?
AThe show was a hard comedy, so we didn't delve too deeply into heavy emotions. The book allowed me to access parts of myself that I tend to hide behind jokes.
QYou realize, of course, that you single-handedly reinforce every popular comic notion about Florida being cuckoo.
AI was very surprised, after “Florida Girls” came out, how many people seemed to relate to it from every state in the country. I feel like Florida gets blamed for being cuckoo when really it's just that a lot of humans are cuckoo. We're just more open about it in Florida, I guess.
QTo say your childhood was rough is an understatement. For instance, your mom and father come across in the book as very loving but also often near criminally neglectful. What did you come to understand about your upbringing in the process of writing this memoir?
AWriting about it helped me see how much love was there. For so long, I've dwelled on the negatives of my upbringing, and looking at the whole story helped me see how much light there was and how loved I was, albeit in unconventional ways.
QWhat did you come to understand about yourself you didn't know before writing this?
AThat being hard on myself for my appearance had everything to do with self-hatred and nothing to do with my skin condition.
Q AWhat can be gained by delving into difficult pasts?
Everything! We are all capable of so much growth. We don't have to stay trapped in negative feelings. We don't have to continue to harm ourselves over and over again. Digging out the past and freeing trapped feelings can allow us to move forward in ways we never imagined.
Q AI'm about to direct a feature! I wrote a screenplay that was on the Blacklist in 2020 and I'm going to direct it this summer.
QFinally, since it's the title of the book — what advice do you have for those who suffer from acne?
AIn “Acne,” Laura Chinn delves into a chaotic childhood that included shuttling between her divorced, somewhat hands-off parents' homes in Florida and the Southland.
What are you working on now?
Find ways to be kind to yourself. Go for a walk in nature, smile at yourself in the mirror, write yourself a love letter. This condition is particularly challenging because we are expected to hide it from the world. As if it's not hard enough to have a health issue, but this one is expected to be covered in makeup and filtered out of photos. It's unfair, and finding any excuse to be kind to yourself might make it a little easier.