Skinny Leg by Jenny Lin

The book I studied for my midterm project is Skinny Leg by Jenny Lin, published by B & D Press in Montreal, Canada, in 2012. It is a limited-edition artist’s book, numbered 8 out of 25 copies and signed by the artist on the colophon page. It was printed in Canada with the ISBN 978-0-9877606-6-1. The copy I worked with is part of my university’s Special Collections archives.

Physically, Skinny Leg is a medium-sized hardbound book measuring about 27 cm tall, 20 cm wide, and 2 cm thick. It has a gray cloth spine and white paper-covered boards. The front cover shows a simple black line drawing of a foot, the “skinny leg” from the title, while the back cover features a small black drawing of a garbage truck. Both drawings are printed in thick, expressive lines that match the illustrations inside. The garbage truck, which appears later in the story, becomes an important image connected to the accident and its aftermath.

The book’s interior design alternates between white, red, and black heavyweight paper, with each color used intentionally to convey a different emotional tone. The red pages appear during moments of trauma or intensity, while the white pages represent recovery, hospital scenes, or moments of calm reflection. The black pages punctuate moments of darkness or confusion. Every page is hand-drawn and hand-lettered by Lin in black ink, giving the text an intimate, almost diary-like quality. There are no printed fonts or typesetting. Everything feels handmade and personal, as if you are reading directly from the artist’s sketchbook.

What makes this book especially fascinating is its interactive construction. Several pages include three-dimensional or movable parts that require the reader to physically engage with the book. For example, there is a pop-up fire truck that bursts from the center of a red spread, creating a sense of motion and urgency. Later, a fold-out sequence titled “Things Were Breaking” opens in multiple directions to show drawings of broken appliances such as a microwave, a laptop, and a VCR alongside an X-ray of Lin’s broken leg. At the center of that fold-out, the story connects the fragility of technology and everyday objects to the fragility of the human body. Another memorable feature is a layered, lift-the-flap self-portrait where Lin’s drawn face can be peeled back to reveal her skull and then her brain underneath, a striking visual metaphor for introspection and trauma. There is also a smaller liftable cut-out of her hospital figure, with clothes that can be “removed” to show her body underneath, referencing her emergency treatment and vulnerability.

The text narrates Lin’s real-life bicycle accident in Montreal in 2011 and her recovery at the Montreal General Hospital. The story moves from the day of the crash, when a truck hit her bike, through her time in the hospital and her gradual process of healing, both physical and emotional. Throughout, Lin mixes seriousness with flashes of humor, writing in a reflective, conversational tone that feels honest and deeply human. The book ends with her acknowledgment that memory changes over time and that, while the accident feels partly fictionalized now, her scars remain as proof of what happened. The final page is signed “Jenny Lin, 2012,” in her own handwriting, with a small drawing of her leg again, bringing the focus back to the body as both subject and document.

Even though it is a small, handmade book, Skinny Leg feels monumental because of how it uses its physical form to tell a story. Every page turn, every fold or flap, mirrors the bodily experience of trauma, vulnerability, and recovery. The materials themselves, paper, glue, thread, and ink, become part of the storytelling. When you hold it, you can sense the care and attention that went into its making. It is an artwork you do not just read, you experience it through touch, motion, and time.

When I first opened Jenny Lin’s Skinny Leg, I did not know what to expect. At first glance, it looks almost like a comic book with its black line drawings and short bits of text, but as soon as I started turning the pages, it became something completely different. The book felt alive in my hands. I realized that reading it was not just about looking at images or words, it was about handling the book, touching it, and interacting with it. The more I moved through its pop-ups, fold-outs, and cutouts, the more I understood that this physical engagement was not just a design choice, it was the point.

In Skinny Leg, Lin uses the structure of the book itself to tell the story of her accident and recovery. Every color, fold, and layer echoes her experience of injury, pain, and healing. The physical act of turning the pages mirrors the slow, careful process of regaining movement and control after trauma. Rather than writing about her recovery in a straightforward way, Lin makes the reader literally feel it through the way the book is built.

The feature that stood out to me most was the book’s interactive design, especially the pop-up and fold-out pages. The “Things Were Breaking” section, where everyday appliances are drawn alongside an X-ray of her broken leg, really stayed with me. As I unfolded each flap, I noticed that everything, the toaster, the DVD player, the laptop, was coming apart. By the time I reached the middle and saw her fractured leg, it felt like I had physically opened up the moment of the accident myself. The fold-out was not just an illustration, it was an experience.

This structure makes the reader take part in reconstructing the story. When we unfold the pages, we are “unfolding” her memory, and when we fold them back, we are helping to put it together again. It is subtle, but it made me think about how trauma is something you have to keep revisiting in order to process it. The book does not let you stay passive, it forces you to move slowly, to pay attention, and to handle it with care.

The color choices work in a similar way. The red pages feel like moments of impact and chaos when the crash happens or when she is in pain, while the white pages feel calmer, like a breath or a pause. Turning from red to white almost feels like taking a deep breath between memories. The few black pages are moments of total darkness, when she cannot see or think clearly. In that sense, Lin turns color into emotion. Each shift reflects her physical and emotional state.

It is impossible to read Skinny Leg without noticing how the book constantly compares itself to a human body. The front cover shows a single leg, drawn in Lin’s distinctive black line style, while the back cover features a garbage truck, a machine that appears multiple times inside the book. At first, the truck might seem random, but it starts to feel symbolic, a mechanical force that crushes and collects, like the truck that struck her bike. The garbage truck also connects to the body’s ability to process pain and remove what is no longer needed, almost like emotional waste.

Inside, this metaphor becomes literal. When Lin includes a pop-up fire truck bursting off the page, or the lift-the-flap self-portrait that reveals her skull and then her brain, the book becomes a living body, fragile, layered, and exposed. The flaps and seams function like skin and muscle, holding together the story’s physical and emotional content. To get to the inside of her story, you have to open up her body, layer by layer. It is a little unsettling, but that is exactly what makes it powerful.

This idea that the book itself acts as a stand-in for the body is one that appears often in book arts, but Lin’s version feels especially personal. Her hand-drawn lines and handwritten text emphasize her presence on every page. You can almost picture her sitting at her table, drawing each stroke, reliving the accident through ink. The entire object becomes a self-portrait, but not just of her body. It is a portrait of her process of remembering and healing.

What makes Skinny Leg so moving is how it uses touch as a form of empathy. The interactive features make you physically participate in her experience. You lift, unfold, and turn pages gently, almost as if you are taking care of the book. It reminded me of how fragile someone can feel after an accident, both physically and emotionally. You have to handle them carefully, and that is exactly what Lin makes you do with her book.

It also made me think about how trauma can live in the body, not just in memory. Elaine Scarry, in The Body in Pain, writes that physical suffering resists language because it is almost impossible to fully describe what pain feels like. Lin seems to answer that challenge not with words but with design. She does not just tell you how it felt, she makes you experience it through the book’s physical structure. Every fold and hinge carries meaning, like a scar that never fully disappears.

When I was turning the pages, I found myself slowing down because I did not want to rip anything. The book feels delicate, and that fragility made me more aware of my own movements. That is when I realized that Lin is not only telling her story but teaching the reader to move through it with sensitivity. Reading Skinny Leg becomes an act of care.

Another layer of the book that really stood out to me is how Lin includes drawings of computer screens and YouTube videos. At one point, she recreates a YouTube page showing a woman with PTSD from a bike accident. This part connects Lin’s personal experience to how trauma often gets shared or consumed online. Seeing a tragedy turned into digital content feels uncomfortable, and I think that is the point. Lin’s hand-drawn version of the YouTube interface highlights the difference between online representation and real, physical experience.

The book itself feels like a response to that digital flattening. Instead of scrolling or clicking, the reader has to touch and spend time with the story. The handmade quality of Skinny Leg, the uneven ink lines, the hand lettering, the visible folds, all of it makes it feel alive and personal, like a conversation between the artist and the reader. It resists the speed and detachment of screens, asking us to slow down and connect in a more human way.

The book’s ending brings everything together in a surprisingly quiet and honest way. Lin writes about how, over time, her memories of the accident have changed, that she has told the story so many times it has started to feel partly fictional, even though her scars are real. That line hit me. It captures how trauma does not stay frozen in one moment, it keeps shifting as we retell it, just like the folds and flaps of her book move and change with each reading.

The repetition of her leg as an image creates a loop, reminding us that healing is not a straight line. The book ends where it began, but with new understanding. By the last page, the reader has physically and emotionally walked through her recovery, and the book itself feels like it has healed along the way.

Jenny Lin’s Skinny Leg transforms the artist’s book into a living, breathing record of trauma and repair. It is not just about a bike accident, it is about what it means to piece yourself back together afterward. The physical form of the book mirrors the human body, which is fragile, layered, and resilient. Through color, texture, and interaction, Lin turns reading into an act of empathy. The reader’s hands become part of the story, mirroring the hands that drew, printed, and rebuilt both the book and the body it represents.

What I find most meaningful about Skinny Leg is that it does not separate art from life. The accident becomes art, and the art becomes part of her healing. It is a reminder that books, like people, can carry pain, memory, and transformation within them and that sometimes the simple act of turning a page can feel like a small gesture of care.