Skin Lane

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:"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.

The very sad life of a solitary man (age 47) in the London of 1967. He continually dreams (nightmares really) of Beauty and the Beast and of strange men. Mr. F (for Freeman) works in the fur trade at M. Scheiner, Ltd. He becomes infatuated with his new apprentice, the owner's sixteen year old nephew, Ralph Scheiner, who is attracted to women. A tragic tale with macabre consequences. I enjoyed his earlier book, Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall.

Having enjoyed the author's "Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall", I read "Skin Lane" and enjoyed it as well, even though the settings and premises are very different. Neil Bartlett can bring all sorts of situations to life."Skin Lane"'s protagonist is Mr. Freeman, known around the shop as Mr. F., who was born around 1920, joined the M. Scheiner Ltd. fur manufacturing firm in the City of London on Skin Lane as a sweeper and rose to be the Head Cutter by 1967, the date of the events of the story. Mr. F. takes furry animal skins, chops them up to remove most traces of the individual animals and to allow others to reassemble the pieces into a fur garment that the wearer enlivens. Mr. F. lives alone in a London apartment south of the Thames.Mr. F.'s life was like a vinyl record. There were five identical tracks for Monday through Friday, followed by two tracks for Saturday and Sunday with broken grooves allowing some slight variations. Play the record one week and then play the same record the next. He became absolutely identified with his profession, and I mean absolutely.Mr. F. starts having a repeating dream about finding a nude youth hanging upside down, bound by his ankles, in Mr. F.'s home bathroom. In his dream, Mr. F. starts out by screaming, waking Mr. F. After months of repetition, Mr. F. brings himself to interact slightly with the body, without ever making out the body's face. In waking life, Mr. F. finds himself obsessing over the dream.Long after the dreams start, Maurice Scheiner, the owner of the firm, announces that his sixteen-year old nephew, Ralph Scheiner, will work at the firm as a sweeper in the sewing machine area. After a brief stay there, Ralph is assigned to Mr. F. to learn about cutting the furs for later stitching. The suspicion around the shop is that Ralph will rotate around the various departments and eventually run the firm.Even though Ralph is compliant with the procedures of the cutting department, Mr. F. regards him as a nuisance. Ralph does learn a reasonable amount and does work hard. Unlike Mr. F., Ralph has a sense of personal growth and advancement over time and a sense of the possibilities of relationships.Then, after months of working together, Mr. F. connects a skin tone, body type, and gesture of Ralph's with the corpse of the dream. When Mr. F. shifts gears and goes out of his way to avoid Ralph, the dream relationship gets more animated, and Mr. F. starts keeping a furtive eye on Ralph from afar.When Ralph gets into a situation that brings him closer to Mr. F., the story moves to a climax and follow-up where the extent of Mr. F.'s obsession is revealed.The author does a fine job of bringing his characters to life. Ralph and the other workers at the furrier are quite vivid. There is a fun interlude involving the making of a fur coat for someone's mistress. Mr. F. tries not to be vivid or fun, but the author keeps Mr. F. having to react to changes of routine.The omniscient narrator comes up with a misleading one paragraph summary of Mr. F.'s plight: "Mr. F., you see, is realizing that he has never lived in the present tense before." (Page 274 of the paperback) Mr. F. could comfortably say, "I go to work every weekday", "This is how one cuts fur", and "This is how we interact." These statements are all in the present tense. What Mr. F. has trouble saying is, "I am going to work today", "I am working on my methods", "I am feeling". Mr. F.'s vinyl record is destined never to change, grow, improve, or feel. It is always and only in the timeless present. If there is too much pressure on a record, it breaks. Then one could go out and get a new one.Mr. F. is a sad, limited man put under pressures he can't understand. "Skin Lane" is a good book to read.

This stunning novel creates psychological tension, not through the endless shocks and horrors typical of the video generation, but through layer upon layer of authorial craft, slicing and shaving its way to the heart of a man. An unusually incomunicative creepy man.The result is engaging and tense, intriguing and gripping, in a gentle pervasive way that is far too rare these days.Read the book. It's weird, it's strange, it's art. And then wait for someone to ruin the film.

Intriguing tale depicting life in the leather trade of 1960s London.Written in a style which really connects with the reader in it`s questioning narrative form.Quite dark and menacing at times,with passages of prose which are extremely vividand descriptive..In short,a tale that will stay in the memory for a long time.

Only read the first few chapters and go really bored with it. It was simply too repetitive & tedious.

A profoundly original meditation on thwarted desire !

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 by a 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 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 (the womens' work), 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 the narrator gives a sense of bad things to come. I must admit, when they did start 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. (I'd give it 4.5 stars if I could).