Skin Lane

(, Main)

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Description

At 47, Mr. F's working life on London s Skin Lane is one governed by calm, precision and routine. So when he starts to have frightening, recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. The images that appear in his dream are disturbing Mr. F can't for the life of him think where they have come from. After all, he's a perfectly ordinary middle-aged man. As London s crooked backstreets begin to swelter in the long, hot summer of 1967, Mr. F's nightmare becomes an obsession. A chance encounter adds a face to the body that nightly haunts him, and the torments of his sweat-drenched nights lead him - and the reader deeper into a terrifying labyrinth of rage, desire and shame. Part fairy-tale, part compelling evocation of a now-lost London, Neil Bartlett's long-awaited third novel is his fiercest piece of writing yet: cruel, erotic, and tender.

Reviews

"'Skin Lane is a fiendishly taut little psycho-shocker that recalls Simenon at his most hardboiled and Highsmith at her creepiest' Will Self 'A powerful and complex story of sexual obsession... a raw, dark, highly dramatic narrative... a profoundly original meditation on thwarted desire' Patrick McGrath 'Brilliantly eerie... constantly surprising... captures vividly the atmosphere of the changing London of the 60s... But it's in his depiction of a specific kind of helpless and fearful love that Bartlett excels' Guardian 'Skin Lane welds itself to your hands from first to last. Textured, teeming with menace and, at the end, deeply moving, it is an extremely fine piece of writing' The Times 'Original, disturbing and... beautifully written, this is an always fascinating work' Literary Review 'A potent fable about the destructive power of lust and an unsettling psychological study in the manner of Patricia Highsmith' Dally Telegraph 'With Skin Lane, Bartlett further demonstrates his skills as a creative polymath of the highest order' Dazed & Confused" "'In hushed, confident prose, Bartlett has created a vivid tale of sexual obsession' Time Out"

Author Bio

Born in 1958, Neil Bartlett works as an author and as a theatre and opera director. His novel Mr.Clive and Mr.Page was shortlisted for the Whitbread Novel Award and has been translated into five European languages. Both Gay Times and the Independent recently listed him as one of Britain's fifty most significant gay cultural figures. In 2000 he was awarded an OBE for his work in the theatre, which includes productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company as well as several controversial solo performance pieces.