A review by ginger_slam_becs
Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett

5.0

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.

Skin Lane is an evocative, lyrical, vivid book that completely captivated my attention (could-not-put-it-down) and I am still haunted by it.

This story of Mr F - a perfectly ordinary middle-aged man who works as a furrier in London's Skin Lane. He is single, lives alone, and has a very regimented, contained, quiet life. That is, until, he experiences a very disturbing dream about a man tied up in his bathroom. He becomes obsessed with understanding the dream and identifying the man in it. Mr F mentally recreates the dream in painstaking detail over and over again looking for clues to the identity of the man. His normal routine becomes disrupted by his obsession. A man who was afraid to "look" now finds himself looking at all the men in his world for clues. He spends solitary hours at the National Gallery where he feels safe to look and stare - to understand. Looking at the painting, The Incredulity of St Thomas, he is approached by another gallery visitor. The stranger makes an observation about how the artist creates a real sense of tangibility, the sense of touch. Mr F is captivated by this comment and confused by the encounter.

When he is asked to mentor a young man, nicknamed Beauty at work, Mr F's understanding of his dream begins to take corporeal shape. The tension and threat of crisis or violence builds as Mr F continues to live his seemingly quiet life that is full of turmoil under the surface. I don't really want to write much more about the plot because it is so captivating and just beautifully executed - and I cannot do it justice.

The book is set in 1967 London and the setting and year is a very specific choice - as it was the year of the Sexual Offenses Act that legalized consensual homosexual activity between consenting adults in Britain and the Abortion Act which legalized abortions on certain grounds. The political and cultural changes that Mr F observes from his route to and from Skin Lane and reading the Evening Standard - he tells himself that these are only happening on the edges of his life, surely not affecting him personally.

The writing style is so expressive, creating the small, highly structured world of Mr F and and the multilayered fur trade business. The description of light in Mr F’s recurring dream the "blood" light on his arm, the harsh glare of the single bulb in his bathroom - so vivid and intense. The dark corners in St. James's Church, the black door of the Skin Lane premises are so evocative and reminded me of the Caravaggio moment and his intense and realistic paintings and use of light and shadows. A book about an ordinary, quiet man, slowly, painfully becoming aware of possibilities - of knowing himself. Imagining the possibilities he never contemplated before: pulling up a second chair at his kitchen table, or in his living room. The idea of “a pair” this simple idea is gorgeously heartbreaking. This book is just so good. SO GOOD.

And the date of Mr F's letter 27 July 1967. Oh. My. Heart.