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kathleen_in_oslo's review
5.0
I came across this book thanks to a recommendation from Alexis Hall. His review is a love letter; it is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/583035492?book_show_action=false&from_review_page=1
Skin Lane is an intense, harrowing, ultimately incredibly moving book that is impossible to categorize and impossible to forget. Mr F is a furrier, living alone, keeping himself to himself, moving to and from his job each day (the same job for 33 years, a job at which he excels, where he is respected but perhaps not liked) - everything highly regulated and routine, exactly as it should be. The first chapter opens by describing his soon-to-be 47-year-old body and then taking us in precise, contained language through his daily routine, from the moment he gets out of bed until his return to his small, spare flat at the end of the day. It's both scientifically observed and incredibly intimate; the latter being reinforced by how the narrator is constantly bringing the reader in, sharing observations, making us complicit, as when chapter 2 opens with "Mr F lived, you will not be surprised to hear, on his own." The reader is left with the impression of a very controlled, very lonely man - an impression that, once established, the narrator then undermines: "But it would be a mistake for you to think of Mr F as unhappy. If anyone had ever asked him if he felt old-fashioned or lonely or hidden away, he would have never have dreamt of answering yes. Far from it." Mr F categorically rejects pity or concern, something that recurs throughout the book through his disdain, even fear, of the simplest possible question: "Are you alright, Mr F?"
Into this ordered existence comes a dream (nightmare, but never referred to as such), exactingly and brutally described, of Mr F coming home to find a naked, faceless young man strung up in his bathroom. The dream recurs, exactly the same in all its specifics, quickly becoming an obsession. "Where have you come from", Mr F demands of the dream:
Where have you come from
Where have you been...
From his normal routine of never looking, never making eye contact, avoiding the human crush as much as possible on his route to and from work, Mr F starts observing, looking for traces of the man (boy) in his dream among the men that surround him. And then Beauty enters the scene: the young, beautiful, spoiled, callow, cocksure nephew and heir apparent of the owner of the company, apprenticed to learn a bit about the manufacturing side of the trade before moving to management. From the moment Beauty appears, we know a confrontation is looming.
"Where have you come from:
Where the hell have you come from?
"As always with Mr F, the answer to his question also comes in the form of a sentence. He can actually hear it - whispered, right in his ear. Because, you see, suddenly, everything fits. This young man is exactly the right size, the right build and the right shape. The hands sharpening the blade are just delicate enough, and his hair - well, you always need a good working light when you're matching pelts, and fortunately the light from the long window is strong this late April morning, and as it catches his hair just where it curls slightly above the collar, it makes it clear that it is an exact match; an exact match for the hair Mr F sees spread across the harsh white enamel of this bathtub at four o'clock every other morning of his strange and tortured life."
Slowly, steadily, Mr F becomes more and more consumed by his obsession - the dream and Beauty as a corporeal being becoming intrinsically connected, inseparable. This slide to obsession is made even more dislocating by the compelling, articulate, expert descriptions against which it is counterpoised: the intricate details of working with skins; the sense of time and place in which the story is immersed; the few, perfectly sketched colleagues Mr F interacts with; even the weather (the cold, the heat, the storms) that make reading this an almost physical sensation. And all the time, the reader is infused with both a sense of dread - but also immense sympathy.
This is so cleverly done. We the readers are being played like a fiddle. The narrator even tells us so, quite early on, in a way that, again, makes us complicit in our own manipulation:
"When a man is solitary, people always want an explanation, don't they - have you noticed that? Especially if he ends up doing something notable, committing a crime for instance, or even just surviving to a very old age. At some point in the conversation, someone always says, I wonder what made him that way?"
(Note the juxtaposition between options - committing a crime versus surviving to a very old age - which do we think the more likely?)
And yes, we do look for an explanation. Scattered through the book are small fragments, memories, of Mr F's lonely upbringing in a motherless household with two much-older brothers and a distant father. These memories, glimpses, are fuzzy, obtuse. Could Mr F have been abused? Is that why? Is this why he is still a virgin? Is that why he is taken by this obsession? Or is it, as the narrator also suggests, less about what did happen and more about what didn't:
"And perhaps even more than the words, it is the silences. They aren't necessarily sinister or malicious in intention; no one means them to maim or deny. When he was little, for instance, eight or perhaps nine, how Mr F used to stare all the time at his older brothers - O, how that little boy used to love being allowed to stay up and watch them getting dressed on a Saturday night! He'd stand in the bathroom doorway in his pyjamas, keeping quiet like he'd been told to, and stare, fascinated, while they took it in turns to strip down to their vests and shave. He loved everything about it; the unwrapping of the brand-new razor blade from its mysterious little paper envelope; the careful whipping up of the soap with the little badger-bristle brush; the silent concentration. The way the white suds were mysteriously flecked with black when the razor got wiped on the little squares of newspaper. They way they smiled at him and said You wait. You just wait, our kid. You'll find out... one day. (....) Yes; maybe it's in the silences, the silences in which we imagine the answers to the questions that we never dared ask, that the damage is first done. Who knows."
This is so fucking good it makes me want to cry. Because this is about so much more than Mr F lacking a template for an intimate or sexual relationship. It's about his utter inability to even imagine, much less extend himself permission to be, a sexual being at all - inextricably connected to him being a sexual being attracted to other men. It is about absence, in the silence of which you just accept what you (think you) know - however limited, however constrained - unable to articulate the audacity of an alternative. And this is where it leads: at the age of 47, reading a newspaper story detailing the passage of the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 (which for the first time decriminalized "homosexual acts between two consenting adults over the age of 21" in England and Wales), reacting thus:
"As it was, Mr F took one look at the headline and decided that the article couldn't possibly be about him. After he'd spent barely a minute scanning it, he turned sedately (no one was watching him; he'd checked) back to page four, which was where they always told you what was going to be on the radio that evening."
I guess this could be read as denial, with its attendant feelings of irritation, or sympathy, or anger, or shame. And it is denial - otherwise why would Mr F check to make sure no one was watching his reaction to this particular article? But it's also a bone-deep acceptance of impossibility. It is bereft. From the same paragraph as above:
"For some reason, the young journalist who had written it had seen fit to mention the fact that the House hadn't risen from its debate until nearly half past six in the morning - until 6.21 a.m., in fact. What a relief it must have been for them all, Mr F thought, to step out into the fresh morning air after having had to talk about all of that nonsense all night long. He always loved the sensation of stepping out onto an empty pavement first thing on a summer morning, before it got too hot. Before London got really going, and the streets were still cool and quiet. Before all the voices started. Before you realised that nothing was ever going to change."
But it does change. It does. The searing confrontation comes. The flames consume. A new idea is planted. Change is sudden. And it is slow. And it does come.
So. Read this book. It is amazing. It will change you.
Skin Lane is an intense, harrowing, ultimately incredibly moving book that is impossible to categorize and impossible to forget. Mr F is a furrier, living alone, keeping himself to himself, moving to and from his job each day (the same job for 33 years, a job at which he excels, where he is respected but perhaps not liked) - everything highly regulated and routine, exactly as it should be. The first chapter opens by describing his soon-to-be 47-year-old body and then taking us in precise, contained language through his daily routine, from the moment he gets out of bed until his return to his small, spare flat at the end of the day. It's both scientifically observed and incredibly intimate; the latter being reinforced by how the narrator is constantly bringing the reader in, sharing observations, making us complicit, as when chapter 2 opens with "Mr F lived, you will not be surprised to hear, on his own." The reader is left with the impression of a very controlled, very lonely man - an impression that, once established, the narrator then undermines: "But it would be a mistake for you to think of Mr F as unhappy. If anyone had ever asked him if he felt old-fashioned or lonely or hidden away, he would have never have dreamt of answering yes. Far from it." Mr F categorically rejects pity or concern, something that recurs throughout the book through his disdain, even fear, of the simplest possible question: "Are you alright, Mr F?"
Into this ordered existence comes a dream (nightmare, but never referred to as such), exactingly and brutally described, of Mr F coming home to find a naked, faceless young man strung up in his bathroom. The dream recurs, exactly the same in all its specifics, quickly becoming an obsession. "Where have you come from", Mr F demands of the dream:
Where have you come from
Where have you been...
From his normal routine of never looking, never making eye contact, avoiding the human crush as much as possible on his route to and from work, Mr F starts observing, looking for traces of the man (boy) in his dream among the men that surround him. And then Beauty enters the scene: the young, beautiful, spoiled, callow, cocksure nephew and heir apparent of the owner of the company, apprenticed to learn a bit about the manufacturing side of the trade before moving to management. From the moment Beauty appears, we know a confrontation is looming.
"Where have you come from:
Where the hell have you come from?
"As always with Mr F, the answer to his question also comes in the form of a sentence. He can actually hear it - whispered, right in his ear. Because, you see, suddenly, everything fits. This young man is exactly the right size, the right build and the right shape. The hands sharpening the blade are just delicate enough, and his hair - well, you always need a good working light when you're matching pelts, and fortunately the light from the long window is strong this late April morning, and as it catches his hair just where it curls slightly above the collar, it makes it clear that it is an exact match; an exact match for the hair Mr F sees spread across the harsh white enamel of this bathtub at four o'clock every other morning of his strange and tortured life."
Slowly, steadily, Mr F becomes more and more consumed by his obsession - the dream and Beauty as a corporeal being becoming intrinsically connected, inseparable. This slide to obsession is made even more dislocating by the compelling, articulate, expert descriptions against which it is counterpoised: the intricate details of working with skins; the sense of time and place in which the story is immersed; the few, perfectly sketched colleagues Mr F interacts with; even the weather (the cold, the heat, the storms) that make reading this an almost physical sensation. And all the time, the reader is infused with both a sense of dread - but also immense sympathy.
This is so cleverly done. We the readers are being played like a fiddle. The narrator even tells us so, quite early on, in a way that, again, makes us complicit in our own manipulation:
"When a man is solitary, people always want an explanation, don't they - have you noticed that? Especially if he ends up doing something notable, committing a crime for instance, or even just surviving to a very old age. At some point in the conversation, someone always says, I wonder what made him that way?"
(Note the juxtaposition between options - committing a crime versus surviving to a very old age - which do we think the more likely?)
And yes, we do look for an explanation. Scattered through the book are small fragments, memories, of Mr F's lonely upbringing in a motherless household with two much-older brothers and a distant father. These memories, glimpses, are fuzzy, obtuse. Could Mr F have been abused? Is that why? Is this why he is still a virgin? Is that why he is taken by this obsession? Or is it, as the narrator also suggests, less about what did happen and more about what didn't:
"And perhaps even more than the words, it is the silences. They aren't necessarily sinister or malicious in intention; no one means them to maim or deny. When he was little, for instance, eight or perhaps nine, how Mr F used to stare all the time at his older brothers - O, how that little boy used to love being allowed to stay up and watch them getting dressed on a Saturday night! He'd stand in the bathroom doorway in his pyjamas, keeping quiet like he'd been told to, and stare, fascinated, while they took it in turns to strip down to their vests and shave. He loved everything about it; the unwrapping of the brand-new razor blade from its mysterious little paper envelope; the careful whipping up of the soap with the little badger-bristle brush; the silent concentration. The way the white suds were mysteriously flecked with black when the razor got wiped on the little squares of newspaper. They way they smiled at him and said You wait. You just wait, our kid. You'll find out... one day. (....) Yes; maybe it's in the silences, the silences in which we imagine the answers to the questions that we never dared ask, that the damage is first done. Who knows."
This is so fucking good it makes me want to cry. Because this is about so much more than Mr F lacking a template for an intimate or sexual relationship. It's about his utter inability to even imagine, much less extend himself permission to be, a sexual being at all - inextricably connected to him being a sexual being attracted to other men. It is about absence, in the silence of which you just accept what you (think you) know - however limited, however constrained - unable to articulate the audacity of an alternative. And this is where it leads: at the age of 47, reading a newspaper story detailing the passage of the Sexual Offenses Act of 1967 (which for the first time decriminalized "homosexual acts between two consenting adults over the age of 21" in England and Wales), reacting thus:
"As it was, Mr F took one look at the headline and decided that the article couldn't possibly be about him. After he'd spent barely a minute scanning it, he turned sedately (no one was watching him; he'd checked) back to page four, which was where they always told you what was going to be on the radio that evening."
I guess this could be read as denial, with its attendant feelings of irritation, or sympathy, or anger, or shame. And it is denial - otherwise why would Mr F check to make sure no one was watching his reaction to this particular article? But it's also a bone-deep acceptance of impossibility. It is bereft. From the same paragraph as above:
"For some reason, the young journalist who had written it had seen fit to mention the fact that the House hadn't risen from its debate until nearly half past six in the morning - until 6.21 a.m., in fact. What a relief it must have been for them all, Mr F thought, to step out into the fresh morning air after having had to talk about all of that nonsense all night long. He always loved the sensation of stepping out onto an empty pavement first thing on a summer morning, before it got too hot. Before London got really going, and the streets were still cool and quiet. Before all the voices started. Before you realised that nothing was ever going to change."
But it does change. It does. The searing confrontation comes. The flames consume. A new idea is planted. Change is sudden. And it is slow. And it does come.
So. Read this book. It is amazing. It will change you.
ofthorondof's review
5.0
Once I started reading this book, I didn't want to put it down. It's a really good book.
see_sadie_read's review
5.0
I don't think I can manage a real review of this. The best I can manage is a rambling wordgasim. There were passages in this book that left me so shattered that all I could do was read and re-read them, occasionally searching places to share. Like this part on page 46:
It's a little long for sharing, but I was so effected by it that I tried posting it on Goodreads. When it didn't fit and I couldn't bring myself to prune it, I read it to my husband and posted it on my personal Facebook page instead. I needed someone to share the experience with me before I could move on. This pattern of mundane, mundane, mundane, emotional gut-punch was one that Bartlett used to great effect on several occasions and it never failed to enrapture me.
The use of language and pacing to elicit feelings was sublime. I didn't even mind that the pace was slow and the story really a little on the depressing or melancholy side. The luscious prose made up for any small detractions I could find. Made up for the fact that Beauty was a little shit, of course he was. He's a pampered 16-year-old boy, unable to grasp the gravity of the situation he founds himself in; practically unaware of it really. Made up for Mr. F's occasionally un-relatable lack of emotions, which let's be fair, was instrumental to his character.
Honestly, I have nothing constructive to say. Go read it. There were moments I didn't like in the book, but by the last page all I could do was curl the book into my chest and hug it to myself. It will go on my to-keep shelf. It should probably go on yours too.
By the time he was what would now be called a teenager, his father, never quite sure what a widower was meant to do with children anyway, had taken to spending every evening alone in the front room with the evening paper; this meant that although by the age of sixteen Mr. F knew how to contribute a week's wages to the household budget, how to scrub and bleach and to cook, no one had ever taught him how to feel. Indeed, the only real lesson his father taught him was that feelings should never be spoken of; his dead mother, for instance, was never mentioned, and there were no pictures of her in the house. When the younger of his brothers was killed, it was Mr. F who went to the door to get the telegram, and when he had given it to his father to read, the old man (men were old at fifty in those days) had done nothing but sit, stony-faced in his usual arm-chair, never saying a word, waiting until night had fallen and the house was dark before walking slowly upstairs, closing his bedroom door behind him, and shouting out his lonely, foul-mouthed, broken-hearted grief to the empty bed on which his children had been conceived. That night, Mr. F again found himself sitting on the stairs, with his head on one side, wondering what the noises meant. Wondering why the door had to be closed before they could be spoken.
It's a little long for sharing, but I was so effected by it that I tried posting it on Goodreads. When it didn't fit and I couldn't bring myself to prune it, I read it to my husband and posted it on my personal Facebook page instead. I needed someone to share the experience with me before I could move on. This pattern of mundane, mundane, mundane, emotional gut-punch was one that Bartlett used to great effect on several occasions and it never failed to enrapture me.
The use of language and pacing to elicit feelings was sublime. I didn't even mind that the pace was slow and the story really a little on the depressing or melancholy side. The luscious prose made up for any small detractions I could find. Made up for the fact that Beauty was a little shit, of course he was. He's a pampered 16-year-old boy, unable to grasp the gravity of the situation he founds himself in; practically unaware of it really. Made up for Mr. F's occasionally un-relatable lack of emotions, which let's be fair, was instrumental to his character.
Honestly, I have nothing constructive to say. Go read it. There were moments I didn't like in the book, but by the last page all I could do was curl the book into my chest and hug it to myself. It will go on my to-keep shelf. It should probably go on yours too.
feralshojo's review
4.0
Intense. Unpredictable. And compelling.
So compelling, in fact, that I cannot believe it's from the same author as The Disappearance Boy, which I found to be bland and boring.
I especially liked the writing in Skin Lane. It is one of those books where you feel like every sentence has meaning, which is probably why it took me so long to finish it.
I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't want to... use it up quite so fast.
This novel is an intricate psychological study that sucks you in deeper and deeper, though I find the first half of the book to be stronger. The built-up is just so well done, even better than the climax.
The description of Mr F's feelings and inner life is spot-on and relatable, to a point where it makes me believe the story must be, at least in part, autobiographical.
So compelling, in fact, that I cannot believe it's from the same author as The Disappearance Boy, which I found to be bland and boring.
I especially liked the writing in Skin Lane. It is one of those books where you feel like every sentence has meaning, which is probably why it took me so long to finish it.
I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't want to... use it up quite so fast.
This novel is an intricate psychological study that sucks you in deeper and deeper, though I find the first half of the book to be stronger. The built-up is just so well done, even better than the climax.
The description of Mr F's feelings and inner life is spot-on and relatable, to a point where it makes me believe the story must be, at least in part, autobiographical.
morgansyd's review
4.0
This was an interesting book to read right after finishing Equus, since they both deal with the dangers of desire/dangers of repressing or acting out your passions and/or emotions (seems like there's no winning there). Except this one was a much quieter, despondent version of that story - this made me reeeally sad... I'll be thinking about pitiful Mr. F and his loneliness for a while.
Having said all that, it was really fun imagining Harry Styles as Beauty lmao
-------------------------------------------
edit, not even 24 hours later: so I've been mulling over this book for a while, and I think it deserves 4 stars instead of 3. I was put off by Part 4, which is where the narrator wraps up the story, and I found it so unsatisfying and a bit pointless.
But I had read this in practically one sitting, it was so gripping, so it's only now that certain things are coming to light that I didn't take notice of as I was reading. Like how much this reminded me of Notes on a Scandal. Not necessarily because of the "scandalous" nature of both the books, or even the age gaps between "romantic interests", but because of our main characters Mr. F and Barbara Covett. Both are so starved of human contact, like that one moment in Notes on a Scandal when Barbara just barely grazes a stranger and she has this almost erotic response because no one has touched her in so long ("... to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin.") So it goes with Mr. F, except he's on the opposite end, and he's repulsed by the idea of being touched by people on the train, at work, etc; it's only when Beauty comes into his life that even the mere thought of touching him makes Mr. F feel faint. It's one thing to not want to be touched by strangers, but to be so lonely and devoid of any sort of physical contact is so horribly sad.
Having said all that, it was really fun imagining Harry Styles as Beauty lmao
-------------------------------------------
edit, not even 24 hours later: so I've been mulling over this book for a while, and I think it deserves 4 stars instead of 3. I was put off by Part 4, which is where the narrator wraps up the story, and I found it so unsatisfying and a bit pointless.
But I had read this in practically one sitting, it was so gripping, so it's only now that certain things are coming to light that I didn't take notice of as I was reading. Like how much this reminded me of Notes on a Scandal. Not necessarily because of the "scandalous" nature of both the books, or even the age gaps between "romantic interests", but because of our main characters Mr. F and Barbara Covett. Both are so starved of human contact, like that one moment in Notes on a Scandal when Barbara just barely grazes a stranger and she has this almost erotic response because no one has touched her in so long ("... to be so chronically untouched that the accidental brush of a bus conductor's hand on your shoulder sends a jolt of longing straight to your groin.") So it goes with Mr. F, except he's on the opposite end, and he's repulsed by the idea of being touched by people on the train, at work, etc; it's only when Beauty comes into his life that even the mere thought of touching him makes Mr. F feel faint. It's one thing to not want to be touched by strangers, but to be so lonely and devoid of any sort of physical contact is so horribly sad.
pandacake95's review
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
jce's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
5.0
This book was such an emotional gut punch. Jesus. I loved it. There's such a particular delight in reading a book and genuinely feeling that you haven't read anything quite like it before. The narration style was so compelling and vaguely disquieting and also somehow enormously fun? I did not know, at all, where this was going, and I enjoyed every minute of it, even the many moments the story basically had me by the throat.
I'm never the biggest plot person generally, and I love when I've read a book and if I explained the plot to someone it would in no way really convey the essence of the story, or the experience of reading it. This book is like that. It's all in the writing, which is startlingly magnetic. I was completely glued to the page. It was just so strange and unsettling and beautiful. There's little I love more than a really odd book and this was just the sort of weirdness that I adore.
Also, I'm feeling a pang of sadness that the book doesn't seem to be in print anymore, because damn, it's really worth reading. Really glad I could get it from the library, but I'm going to buy my own used copy anyway, because this one will need to be re-read, and I'm dying to tab pages and underline favorite parts.
I'm never the biggest plot person generally, and I love when I've read a book and if I explained the plot to someone it would in no way really convey the essence of the story, or the experience of reading it. This book is like that. It's all in the writing, which is startlingly magnetic. I was completely glued to the page. It was just so strange and unsettling and beautiful. There's little I love more than a really odd book and this was just the sort of weirdness that I adore.
Also, I'm feeling a pang of sadness that the book doesn't seem to be in print anymore, because damn, it's really worth reading. Really glad I could get it from the library, but I'm going to buy my own used copy anyway, because this one will need to be re-read, and I'm dying to tab pages and underline favorite parts.