Skin Lane

Well, this was disappointing. The book started promisingly enough; I'm keen on protagonists who are ineffectual, inconspicuous sorts seemingly doomed to unhappiness, and Bartlett began to portray one of them well. Moreover he held my interest in the account of the work of a furrier and his description of the old dark environs of the workshop was atmospheric. But by the time I'd got halfway through I was as annoyed as I was interested, and not long after that I found I wasn't reading closely. By the last 50 pages I was hurriedly skimming.

What particularly annoyed me was the tone of the novel. The omniscient narrator for some reason occasionally and abruptly slips into casual references to himself and the reader. The device seems a random show more choice too, distancing the reader from the protagonist and tevents rather than enhancing them or impressing them upon one. 'I think Mr F felt . . ', 'most of us have sometimes thought . . .' , 'you probably remember how . . . '. Just stop that,. Mr B.

Not only does Bartlett insist upon the reader's complicity with him, he tells when he's already shown, his use of repetition is fairly heavy-handed, and he inserts needless & sometimes uninteresting tidbits of London history, most hamfistedly when the story should be at its most taut. Moreover given the sort of novel it is or is striiving to be the book's much too long--again, much of its content seems unnecessary, blunting the impact of the story itself. I've read other novels, novellas even, with similar protagonists that were far more powerful in many fewer pages and I bet you have too. . Written without the intrusive chumminess but with more tightness and focus Skin Lane might have been a good book. show less

Mr F has worked for 33 of his 47 years in the fur trade in 60s London and is a master cutter who takes pride in his work. A bachelor, he leads a strictly ordered life, running to a strict to the minute timetable that rarely deviates. It’s not a normal life, but then neither was his female-free childhood. Then he starts to have dreams, nightmares in which he discovers the bleeding body of a beautiful youth tied up in his bathroom. They won’t go away, and he finds himself obsessing about the body, looking at young men when he’s on the train. At work in Skin Lane, in the fur-trading area of the city, Mr F has further reason to be perturbed. He’s put in charge of training the nephew of the firm’s owner in cutting as part of show more learning the business. The boy has been nicknamed Beauty by the girls in the sewing room, and Mr F although initially aloof is increasingly interested in the boy, then realises that he resembles the body in the shower …

This chilling drama will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Firstly, it is told through a knowing narrator’s voice, who always knows what’s coming next; we are manipulated all the way through and this device successfully ratchets up the tension notch by notch. Secondly, we learn all about the fur trade – from selecting skins, cutting, sewing, and finally the selling of fur coats to men who give them to their floosies for sex.

The book started slowly, building up the story of Mr F’s over-normal life, and learning about the trade which made fascinating reading. All along though the narrator gives a sense of nasty things to come. I must admit, when things started to turn nasty, I thought the narrator was leading us down a more grizzly path than actually happened (an overactive imagination or what!), I had visions of ghoulish Jack the Ripper style murders to come. However what we got was much more subtle than that and also inextricably linked to the fairytale of Beauty and the Beast, which was Mr F’s childhood favourite.

I can honestly say I had no idea what was going to happen or how things would end. I was expecting Mr F to be a real monster, yet ended up feeling sorry for him, instead hating Beauty’s beastly ways. This was a masterly novel of suspenseful storytelling. If you have the stomach for it, I’d strongly recommend it. (9/10, I bought this book). show less

Skin Lane is a short masterpiece, a compelling psychological drama with all of the page-turning attributes of a good mystery. Neil Bartlett, its author, is a prolific playwright as well as a novelist, and his focus in this story is a 46-year-old man whom we know mostly as Mr. F. He is one of the last generation of skilled cutters who worked for the 300 furriers who plied their wares on Skin Lane and neighbouring streets in the City of London in the first half of the 20th century. As the novel opens, Mr. F. has lived the same unfulfilling, solitary, virginal life for three decades, going by train to work each day at the same time, home again each night, wandering the city or visiting art galleries on the weekends–his routine unbroken, show more his mind numb even to its tedium.

It is the mid-sixties and it is London: and we can see that all around him the world is changing. His generation and those who have gone before may be mired in tradition and obligation and doing what is right and proper, but young people are ignoring all the rules, breaking them at every turn. It appears Mr. F. has been left behind, has missed his chance at… what? That is the question he must ultimately answer – although for a long time it seems he doesn’t even know there is a question, and that he doesn’t really care. But we soon learn that he is watching, from the corner of his eye, from beneath his lowered lids: he sees the life that pulses just beyond his grasp in the taut bodies of the young.

Mr. F. starts having a recurring dream that appears to have its roots in his childhood reading of Beauty and The Beast. The dream, a nightmare really (except that there is something deeply compelling about it too – as there are in so many good nightmares) begins to wake him up to his own sexuality, but in a dark way: intertwining it with the bloody work he does.

Anyone who has dreamed about a specific person and known that he or she must have seen that other person in real life, but can’t remember where or when, as I have done, will recognize the central mystery in this novel: Who is the young man who figures in Mr. F’s nightmares, dead, beautiful, hanging upside down, apparently murdered in Mr. F.’s own bathroom? And what do the dreams portend?

Skin Lane is a gripping read, building in intensity, and while we are compulsively reading forward in spite of our dread of the outcome, we are also absorbing the smells and fascinating facts about a world even now just newly dead – where in a whole “Hidden World” of London, through winter’s cold and summer’s heat, men on the top floors of a narrow building cut the skins of animals to pieces, and sewed them into expensive new skins that men would later use to decorate their most prize possessions: their wives and mistresses.

Bartlett’s clever conversational tone and his apparently infinite capacity for detail draws us in to his confidence. It convinces us that this writer has the inside track on this world, and on the enigmatic man he has created—just one example of the millions of people in the world who lead outwardly unremarkable lives but who (we know) must be capable of anything.

See the rest of this review at http://marywwaltersbookreviews.wordpress.com show less

Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett is the rare book that can break your heart while scaring you to death.

Neil Bartlett's retelling of Beauty and the Beast takes place in 1960's London during the waning days of the fur trade. At one time there was a real Skin Lane, an area of London where all of the nations furriers operated, making a wide range of fur coats and other garments. Already the story is a little creepy.

The main character, Mr. F., has worked for the same fur manufacturer for 33 years. He has worked his way up from sweeping the floors to head cutter a supervisory position that will be as high as he can go since he is not part of the family that owns the business. Mr. F. has lived his life alone, sleeping in a single bed that he has show more never once shared with anyone male or female. He lives a simple, quiet, private life that satisfies him fully, until on night he begins to have a disturbing recurring dream.

He dreams that he finds a beautiful young man, bound and gagged, hanging upside down in his bathroom shower. Each night he dreams that he goes closer and closer to the body hanging in the shower, studying it, examining its skin the way he would examine a fur he has to cut into the pieces of a new coat. He wakes in a sweat, afraid to fall asleep again, afraid of what his dream means.

At work, he is given the job of supervising his boss's young nephew who is learning the trade from the ground up in order to take over the business. The nephew is so handsome at 16-years-old that he is soon known as Beauty by the women who work in the sewing room where he starts his education in the fur trade. In his dreams, Mr. F. gets closer and closer to the body in his shower, close enough to see that it is dead, but not close enough to see who it is. Once Beauty is assigned to work under Mr. F., they begin to form a close relationship, close enough for Beauty to go to Mr. F. for help when he gets into trouble with one of the girls. As Mr. F. becomes physically and emotionally attracted to Beauty, he sees that the body hanging in his shower he dreams of nightly is that of the young man.

Neil Bartlett is a consummate story teller. The introductory sections that detail Mr. F.'s daily routine, the slow build up of tension as Mr. F. gets closer to young Beauty are not "exciting" as they might be a more conventional thriller. But as the details of Mr. F.'s dream and the inner workings of the fur trade emerge over the course of the novel, a tension builds that is much more authentic and disturbing than what is found in conventional thrillers. The effect is like watching a car wreck that gets worse before your eyes. You probably think you know what is going to happen in the end. But you don't. Neil Bartlett sets things up to lead the reader to suspect an outcome, but what finally does happen is both unexpected and heartbreaking. show less

Plot

Mr F is the head cutter at No 4, Skin Lane. He is almost 47 years old and has been working for 33 years in the fur trade. Mr F lives his life to a strict routine, never deviating... until he starts to have dreams....

Review

I was captivated by this book from the very start. The intricate descriptions of Mt F's daily life, routine at work and London make you feel as if you are following Mr F on his commute from Peckham Rye to Skin Lane. Evocative and nostalgic.

Yet the book is thrilling, a tale about how a life can be flipped upside down and how Mr F learns to make sense of who he really is and in turn, learning how to love.
I couldn't recommend the book more for brilliant characterisation, evocation of the "art" of cutting fur, for the show more rambling descriptions of London and for a story that kept me turning the pages hours after I should be fast asleep.

The only reason I gave the book 4 1/2 stars was because I felt it faltered a in the middle of the book, when Mr F is wrangling with his dreams. show less

Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett

This novel was shortlisted for the Costa Award in 2007. It is a retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast' set in London in the 60's at the end of the fur trade. The main character simply known as Mr F. is a solitary man whose life is meticulous in routine. He has worked at the same establishment for over 30 years and each day retraces his steps exactly returning home spending his time alone living in a small flat with little human contact. One day his predictable existence is altered when the owners nephew is apprenticed to him. He is chief cutter having worked his way up from a sweeper at the furrier. Soon he begins to experience a recurring haunting dream. Mr F. senses a connection between his dreams and this show more young man whom the women in the factory have nicknamed 'Beauty'.

This is a very compelling and dark book and not like anything I have ever read before. The erotic tension is palpable but ultimately there is no sex. However it builds and builds and then the omnipresent narrator pulls you back just enough so that you catch your breath and then it begins all over again. Highly recommended. show less

The storyline went in a very different direction from what I initially expected. The narrative technique was interesting and I found myself feeling horribly sad for the main character quite more than expected, but the extent of detail used to describe his daily routines and the fur trade began to wear me out a bit. An interesting psychological profile of a lonely individual, but not quite my cup of tea.