Skin Lane

by Neil Bartlett

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.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Historical, Queer, Historical Fiction, Gay, Literary Fiction

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Born in 1958, Neil Bartlett has spent twenty-five years at the cutting edge of British gay culture. His ground-breaking study of Oscar Wilde, Who Was That Man? paved the way for a queer re-imagining of history ; his first novel, Ready To Catch Him Should He Fall, was voted Capital Gay Book of The Year; his second, Mr Clive and Mr Page, was nominated for the Whitbread Prize. Both have since been translated into five European languages. Listing him as one of the country's fifty most significant gay cultural figures, the Independent said "Brilliant,beautiful, mischievous; few men can match Bartlett for the breadth of his exploration of gay sensibility".

He also works as a director, and in 2000 was awarded an OBE for services to the theatre. He founded his first theatre company in 1982 and is now an "independent theatre-maker and freelance director", continuing to write novels and work as an activist for gay rights.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Reviews

[Nick Pageant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beauty.

According to Shakespeare -
Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,
Not utter'd by base sale of chapmen's tongues

Benjamin Franklin said it better -
Beauty, like supreme dominion
Is but supported by opinion

And, naturally, Madonna said it best of all -



I thought a lot about beauty while reading this wonderfully strange, devastating book. If I'd been asked at any point while reading it what the book was about, I would not have said 'beauty' but, now that it's done, beauty's what I'm left with.

This is supposed to be a review and to be a review I have to give a little plot away, so... I'll just say this - Mr. F., the hero of this story, has never looked at beauty before; he's seen it, but he's never looked. When he finally does there are consequences - for him, and for the beauty, too.

To justify all five of those stars at the top of this review...

I think all of us here have a certain quality in common - we're generous. We love our books, but we're not selfish with them. When we find a good thing we want to share. When I am reading a really good one, I'm making a list of all the people I'll share the book with. Who'll be next in line to feel what I just felt? Who will get the recommendation? Who will absolutely love this?

So, I made my list, but I started crossing names off as I got further into the story. The first few names were nixed because, to be honest, I was a bit embarrassed by the content. I didn't want certain people knowing how much I was identifying with the sad, angry, beastly Mr. F.

The last names were eliminated for a different reason. For the first time ever, I wanted (and still do, just a bit) to keep a book all to myself. Don't misunderstand - this story doesn't feel like a prized possession; it feels like a terrifying, wonderful secret... and those should never be shared.

[Alexis Hall]

Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words. My language trembles with desire. (Barthes)

I’ve been meaning to write something about this for ages - and here I am, finally getting round to it. This is one of my favourite books, and I re-read it when I was moving house, which just reminded me how much I love it. Melancholy, tender, chilling and surprising - it’s a sort of beauty & the beast story, but so much more.

The central character is Mr F - a single man in his mid-forties who works at a furriers on Skin Lane. Set very specifically in 1967 (the year in which the recommendations of the Wollfenden Report against the criminalisation of homosexual activity between consenting adults became law in Britain), Skin Lane is a story of identity told through a man who does not know himself.

Mr F lives his life by routine (which is meticulously described but never dull) until he inexplicably begins to experience recurring and vivid dreams of a beautiful, naked young man hanging dead in his bathroom. Not long after, he is given a new apprentice at work - a swaggeringly lovely and arrogant sixteen year old, the girls in the office call Beauty:

Quick, dark and bright-eyed, he is one of those neatly built young men who not only knows exactly what they look like ... but is already well-versed in the uses such looks can be put to…

The tone of the novel is one of sweltering heat, intricate detailing, obsession, desire and slowly building horror. However, the way these ideas resolve (or don’t resolve) never follows the anticipated path - and our expectations of lurid tragedy are swiftly peeled back to reveal a different, altogether different horror: that of repression and loss. Lack of love.

I really don’t want to say too much about it because it’s better just to let the story unfurl. It’s ... beautiful, and terrible, and just about perfect.

[Cristina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read my first novel by Neil Bartlett, The Disappearance Boy, back in the summer and I was utterly impressed by it. Nothing, however, could prepare me for the mind-blowing experience that is Skin Lane. The enigmatic story of the lonely and mysterious Mr F, head cutter in one of the many furriers' workshops that used to litter one specific lane in the City of London in the late 1960s, left me with a strange mixture of unease and hope.

The sweltering summer of 1967 was London's own Summer of Love - a few months of sexual liberation, social revolution and major political changes, such as the decriminalisation of homosexual acts between men, which received its Royal Assent on July 27th - a crucial date in the novel's plot.

This atmosphere of social upheaval and modernisation is, however, just a soft echo in the background of the story and doesn't appear to have any direct impact on the life of Scheiner And Son and on the majority of its employees who seem to be set in their old, well-established methods. And none of them more so that Mr F. His drab life is dominated by a set of immutable rituals - wake-up times, washing routines, cigarette breaks. Always dressed in his stiff brown worsted suit, always following the same route to and from work, always sticking to his precise working patterns - Mr F seems untouched by change until his repetitive life is perturbed first by a recurrent and disturbing dream and then by the arrival of a young employee who completely shatters the fake layer of security behind which he tries to stifle his most secret desires.

Beauty - so is the boy nicknamed in the book - is the Belle to Mr F's Beast. There are, however, crucial differences between Bartlett's book and this classic fairytale on the transformative power of love. Beauty is not as sincere and kind-hearted as Belle - he's a scheming 'boychik', more than willing to take advantage of Mr F's passion for him when he needs help to get out of a messy situation with a young girl working in one of the firm's other departments. And besides, Mr F is not the fairytale's Beast who sheds his furs and monstrous aspect to revert into his original Prince Charming's identity once true love has been found.

We're left at the end of the book with the impression - the hope? - of a deep inner change taking place in Mr F - and furs are indeed shed, by means of a cleansing and all-consuming fire, but there's no easy resolution to his complicated life story, no love met by chance on the train to Peckham Rye, no awareness that what is taking place in the Houses of Parliament can indeed mean something to him as well.

Despite the absence of a neat and happy resolution, this book didn't feel unsatisfying or emptily depressing. It was, however, a profoundly moving experience animated by a dark undercurrent of erotic obsession (Mr F's unsent letter to Beauty of July 27th is worth shivers down your spine...) and internal turmoil that is at times strangely combined with unexpected moments of tenderness. I now see why some of my GR friends recommended the novel to me while we were eagerly discussing Maria McCann's As Meat Loves Salt. Thank you, Nick and Sofia!

Mr F and his bygone London - a London 'when one day [...] really did stop before the next one began' - come powerfully to life in Bartlett's sensual prose marked by direct addresses to the readers, anticipations, flashbacks, cinematic descriptions.

This is a truly amazing book, emotional and compelling and I highly recommend it.

[Sofia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bravo........

Those who know me will ask why did I take a whole week to read it, so I'll answer that. Reading this book was like eating a good meal or sipping a good wine, I wanted to savour each bite, each sip and I want to give time between each bit to digest. Plus this was a nail biting read for me, I was scared at what was going to happen and I knew that each page read was bringing me closer and closer. Sometimes I so wanted to vent my anger, my fear on the narrator, the one who knew all but was so coy. Great job.

Bartlett's reworking, presentation of The Beauty and The Beast is thought provoking. What is Beauty? What is Beastly? Mr F worked daily for years on that precarious line that transformed beast into beauty and this is poetic considering the end. Beauty is only a surface beauty and I heaved more than one sigh of relief and joy when F became Freeman, how the beast shed his chains and become a Beauty

Ordered a second hand paperback - received a author signed copy 23rd May 2016 - :D

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

(3.5) A very, very slow-paced novel that’s partly a tale of sexual obsession, partly a (presumably) faithful and extremely thorough recreation of the work of a furrier in 1960s London. Our protagonist, ‘Mr F’, is a ‘cutter’ at Scheiner’s, a venerable manufacturer of fur coats. He’s an unmarried, middle-aged virgin who’s lived in the same quiet fashion for decades and has always been careful not to look too closely at his own sexuality. This studied repression begins to come apart during the long hot summer of 1967, first with Mr F’s recurring nightmare about a body hanging in his bathroom; then an infatuation with his boss’s 16-year-old nephew; then a reality-fraying intermingling of the two. There are perhaps too many diversions (such as the dragged-out subplot about a man buying his younger girlfriend a fur coat), and the amount of time devoted to the technical details of Mr F’s craft – while obviously well-researched and interesting from a historical perspective – tested my patience. But the final quarter of the book is a great example of misdirection being used to very satisfying effect. The ending ties everything together so well that I’m happy to forgive how long it takes to get there.

TinyLetter | Linktree

[Kathleen in Oslo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came across this book thanks to a recommendation from Alexis Hall. His review is a love letter; it is here.

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 that 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, sympathy, anger, 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.

[wasteland baby · Rating 5 out of 5]

so at out last book club meeting we were discussing this highly conceptual story that we were all kinda frustrated with, and then one of my book club buddies (shoutout to ivan, sry if i'm misremembering your thoughts!) said sth along the lines of "for me, a great concept isn't enough - for a novel to truly resonate with me, the conceptual level has to seamlessly function alongside everything else; the style, the character work, the themes, the way the story flows - everything has to work together to form one cohesive, unified whole"
and i was sitting there nodding my head thinking "that's just like my best friend skin lane by neil bartlett fr!!!"

and obviously i didn't actually say it because it was very much not the topic of the conversation, but also because i had read that book in 2022 in quite specific circumstances (see the very emotional review below - the reading group alongside which i first experienced this novel truly was an almost feverishly intense gathering of minds) and one had to wonder if the effect skin lane originally had on me would still hold up in a more casual reading setting. another thing that had changed in the intervening two years is that had the chance to enjoy neil bartlett's work in another medium, namely by listening to his excellent performance of wilde's de profundis, so now knowing his voice could potentially impact how i "heard" this novel's narrator.

all of these caveats to say - i was fully prepared for it to simply not slap as hard as it did the first time round. and in some ways, i guess it didn't? i still remembered most of it well enough not to be in suspense (and it is, in its own way, a very suspenseful novel), and there were certain plot choices that i perhaps didn't find as compelling on a reread. but, on the whole? jesus christ did mr bartlett understand the assigment.

the thing is, this is a historical novel about queer repression! one that has a very intrusive, very smug omniscient narrator! and it has bits from beauty and the beast thrown in there bcs !! this is actually a depressing fairy tale where "once upon a time" is 50 years ago and the beast is a sexually repressed middle-aged furrier !!!!
and if you're anything like me this description alone will shock and delight, but take also into consideration: the gender politics of it all! the incredibly evocative and well-drawn working-class London setting! the level to which Mr. F. does not understand himself!! the fact that we are constantly reminded of the fact that that he's worked at his job for 33 years (of the jesus's age fame)!! mr bartlett rlly gave us layer upon layer upon layer. a veritable onion of a reading experience.
a perfect pride month read, a perfect summer read (this book is sweaty and sweltering in the same way persuasion is wind-swept and chilly), truly a NOVEL™ that luxuriates in the fact that it is a novel and that it can therefore bang you over the head with so much shit all at once.
skin lane once again made me feel seen in a myriad of uncomfortable ways, it made me chuckle, tear up, and ultimately whisper "oh fuck off!!!" at those last few lines. a resounding success of a reread, if you ask me!


ORIGINAL JUNE 2022 REVIEW:
I have no idea how I would even attempt to write a coherent review of a book that left me this tender and raw. This was without doubt one of the most beautifully crafted pieces of fiction I have ever read.

The true yearning and pain of Skin Lane comes not just from reading about Mr F and how little he knows himself and how desparately repressed and lonely he is - it comes from realising you yourself have some of Mr F within you. That this incredibly specific, culturally and temporally determined alienation is in some small measure universal. That we all, more than anything, want connection, and to be touched, and to be loved.

The ending of the book (the letter) completely wrecked me. The desires of the heart are so simple and tame, and their absence so stronly and painfully felt. How Neil Bartlett managed to convey every shred of human longing and desolation in this less than 400-page novel is beyond me.

An incredible book, and I am SO grateful to not only have read it, but to be discussing it with my buddy read friends. I don't think I could have found a better, smarter and more supportive group of readers if I'd dreamed them up. You guys rock <3

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this some years ago, but mysteriously have never included it here.

I recall a strong, beautiful novel from a talented writer. It's a haunted fairy tale, a parable of the soul-destroying repercussions of denial. I can't be more specific than that, but I remember loving it!

If I had it here in front of me I would read it again right now. That's the highest praise I can give it.

[LenaRibka · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 stars

What an unusual book!

To tell the truth, I've never read the blurb (maybe I read it the first time I came across this book on my feeds, but I don't remember it). It was enough for me to see many 5 stars reviews from the people I know and trust, because of their tastes I could rely upon. I wanted to read it. I needed to read it. There was ONLY a paperback of this book to purchase on Amazon, and ONLY as a secondhand exemplar. (Can someone explain me WHY?) This book should be republished and digitized.

Neil Bartlett created a piece of art. It is impossible not to fall in love with his prose, with a unique beauty of his narrative, in all it heartbreaking loneliness, brokenness and fragility.



You shouldn't miss it by no means. Don't read the blurb and reviews, the less you know about the content, the better. A strange, touching and wonderful read about obsession, unmet needs, power of dreams, unfulfilled feels, awakening, beginning, ending. This book will haunt me for a long time, I'm sure.

So it wasn't just the story of Mr F's obsession or of Beauty's apprenticeship that came to an end in the flames of that fire; everything that had seemed so tightly interlocked around those premises was, in the space of just a few weeks, dispersed.

[dobbs the dog · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is quite a book. It is about Mr F, who is a 47 year old furrier in London’s fur trade, in 1967.

What I found fascinating about the book is how it defies genre. It certainly veers towards horror, but is also deeply emotional. And while you’re pretty certain Mr F is going to straight up murder someone throughout most of the book, the ending is completely not what you would expect. So, it also veers towards being a thriller, because it keeps you guessing until the very end. But then maybe it’s just a story about a lonely man, living and working in London in a year of great change (the Homosexual Offenses Act was passed, the Abortion Act was passed).

This book gave me so much to think about and having read it twice, back to back, I’m still thinking about it, and likely will be for quite a while to come.

Skin Lane is definitely not a book for everyone. But if you like genre-bending with an incredibly fascinating narrator that will leave you guessing, then maybe this is the book for you. Though good luck finding a copy; it’s out of print and not available as an e-book (except on Google Books).

Also, if you read this book and need something more, I so enjoyed the book that I wrote a bit of fan fiction for Mr F, you can find it here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/401...

[Nigeyb · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Skin Lane" captures vividly the atmosphere of the changing London of the 60s, and Neil Bartlett's descriptions of the City of London itself - the churches, the markets, the dark alleyways - feel very accurate and tally with my own knowledge of the area.

There is much to love about "Skin Lane” - it is beautifully written, highly original, disturbing and unpredictable. I was beguiled from start to the finish.

Mr F, the central character, is a single man in his mid-40s. He works as the head cutter at a furriers based in Skin Lane, near Cannon Street, in the City of London. The book contains a trove of information about the London fur industry, now long gone, that thrived in the immediate post-War era.

I’d say the less you know about the plot the better, suffice it to say this is a wonderful book. Very cleverly narrated by a third person observer, who challenges the reader’s reactions, and with so many levels of intrigue, it would make a perfect book for a book group to read and discuss.

Wonderful.

5/5

[Laxmama · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a nights sleep on this I have many thoughts on this book. The story for me was disturbing sad, it portrays so much loneliness, heartache and abandonment. The MC goes through inner conflict alone in the world and impressively strong without any understating of life around him. It is so sad to see how sensual and tactile he is with his work yet utterly alone in every aspect of life. The object of his affection is written razor sharp. The manipulation, narcissism and selfishness of personalities is so well depicted in the actions of many other characters.

This book is one of those that gets me after the fact, settles in after some time, yet it's a very uneasy feeling I am left with.

[Irina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm in awe with the writing! The quiet flow of the story is spellbinding and hair-raising. I kept proceeding with caution, sensing the doom but completely unable to stop. Even the use of a night light in order to read a paperback didn't deter me (well, not much).

I loved Mr F's unraveling story, or rather a part of it. The post-WWII London came alive under the author's magic touch and I could feel my hands itching to google the Skin Lane to see if it was real. It felt so authentic as if I read a true story. Weaving it around a fur trade is another reason I was fascinated. There's something irresistible about those beasts turning into such beauties - I loved being 'behind the curtains' and learning so much about it.

And Mr F... I couldn't help but wish for his HEA. As unlikely as it seemed, I kept on hoping. Mr F's lifelong loneliness was unbearable to witness - the journey of a lost little boy. He deserved to be found, shown love and taught happiness. Unfortunately, sometimes it's beyond our control. Despite that, however, I liked the bittersweet thought-provoking ending of what-ifs. And because it's open to speculation, I'm well capable of creating a small epilogue for Mr F in my head.

*5 stars*

P.S.: Thank you for a wonderful gift, my friend! It now joins my paperback collection :)

[Claire Fuller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really interesting novel, quiet and slow, but with a burning intensity always just below the surface. Only twice does this simmering undercurrent burst out, before being suppressed again. I guess that's not surprising because the main character is so repressed he doesn't even know it. It's 1967 and Mr F is a furrier, skilled and experienced at cutting furs. He has lived all of his 47 years via an unvarying routine. He's single and has never had a relationship. But out of the blue he starts to have a recurring and terrifying dream and begins to look for the man who appears in it. When finally he finds him, an obsession takes hold. The book is wonderfully evocative of London in 1967 and Mr F is such a brilliant and odd character. I don't know why, but in my mind I saw him as Toby Jones. I think this novel is sadly now out of print, but if you can get hold of it, it's a great one to read for Pride month.

[c.a. · Rating 5 out of 5]

How to tell you about Skin Lane. It's a fairy tale -- the sort that gives you nightmares, not the sort that promises a prince and a castle and a happily ever after. It's historical fiction, depicting a late-60s London so cunningly drawn you can follow the main character down its narrow alleys and feel like you've walked there too. It's a story of self-discovery, only that journey is so terrible and devastating you wonder how, or if, the main character will make it through. It's a book about a middle-aged man who was getting on just fine, thank you very much -- until, one day, he wasn't.

Honestly though, this is one of the best books I've read recently, and I still don't know how to talk about it besides saying that it's really, really good, and haunting, and should you find yourself in the vicinity of a copy, absolutely give it a try.

[Becs · Rating 5 out of 5]

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.

[Blandrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would never have picked this up if I hadn't had a group of people (with similar pallets) recommend it. And I am very glad I didn't have to read this book alone. If you are considering it, maybe have an emotional support buddy because it's an intense ride.

There are plenty of reviews on here that will do a much better job at capturing this book than I ever could so I'm just going to go with my impressions.

This is a story of a man who lives out of time. This is a story with no clear genre. This is a story with a narrator that at once seems omniscient, but then has very obvious gaps in knowledge. All of these combine to create an experience that is unsettling in a way that does not rely on a jump-scare to leave you feeling slightly lost and never quite sure where the story is headed.

When I was told this story was a bit of a fairy tale, I instantly imagined Disney, but this is probably the closest an adult can get to re-experiencing the Grimms version of fairytales.

I am so, so glad I read this.

Light out now.

Goodnight.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fuck. I don’t know what to say. Jeeeez. This book gutted me, in a good way. The last pages – OMG – made me spill all the tears. I am deeply touched.

From the very beginning, Skin Lane, pulls the reader in with such rich atmosphere and feeling of place and time. This book is very intimate – haven’t read such an auctorial and close narration in maybe ever – and takes us deep into one man’s inner life.

The author lulls us in with his smart and gentle story-telling and we follow him blindly into London in the year 1967. On an on he describes the routines of Mr. F, who is a furrier on Skin Lane, his way to work, his thoughts, his dull, for decades long, same old life; only to grab us – out of the blue – with a simple word, a simple sentence, that contains so much promise and foreboding.

Mr. F’s life is disrupted by a recurring dream of a young man, hanging naked in his bathroom. While he tries to make sense of it, to find the man whose face he cannot see, the story spirals into obsession, into dark places within himself, into…
That is for you to find out. To know too much will spoil the reading experience, so I’m gonna stop and leave you with this short teaser here:

Everything was the same.
But the man who heard the front door click shut behind him so loudly, and who then stood aimlessly in the hallway of his flat with the key still in his hand for several silent minutes, was not. The suit was identical – but this is surely not the same man who we met at the beginning of our story. Tonight, as he goes into his bedroom and stares at himself in his wardrobe mirror, he barely even recogises himself. He cannot account for himself; he cannot describe what he sees. If what he is feeling is a disease, then why is it that he no longer wants to be cured? If it is grief he feels (grief, that distorts his staring face), then it must be grief at losing something he’s never had – he thinks (maybe it’s just the light in here) that he can see his face burning with shame – but for what? For what, exactly? Looking at the unmade bed behind him, he remembers waking up, twisted in those very same sheets, his mouth distorted by a kiss.

I feel like talking about this book much more.
I want to write so much more.
Why I was so touched.
What I’m thinking about the ending.
How I was challenged.
How it left me behind in the end.

So come find me, once you’ve read it, too, so we can compare our thoughts and share the love and grief and hope.

A note: This book is not available as an eBook. I bought a paperback – a used one because it was cheaper – which I never do. I regret nothing.

_______________________________

Please also read Alexis's review. It's all his fault <3

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Genre: gay portrait, historical
Tags: London 1967, furrier
Rating: 5 stars
Blog: Review for Just Love Romance

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is 1967. The summer that is approaching will have a name, a word that Mr F. does not use. Mr F. works at Scheiner & Sons, a Furrier on London's Skin Lane, where he is the chief cutter, choosing and cutting out the furs for coats and other garments. Mr F. has a disturbing recurring dream, about a young man, that he does not understand, but soon becomes intrigued by. When his employer's nephew begins working at the firm Mr F.'s dream begins to take on an air of dark and tense reality, boding ill for all concerned. As the summer progresses, the heat rises, the dream changes, and Mr F.'s hitherto staid and ordered life alters too.

Beautiful, considered prose envelops this strange and menacing tale. Neil Bartlett has once more produced a novel that is intriguing and unusual, with a hero with whom we can sympathize, despite his flaws. Possibly not everyone's cup of tea for many reasons, but for me a wonderful work of art.

[Jax · Rating 5 out of 5]

The slow, methodical routine of a solitary life is thrown into turmoil by the emergence of secret desires. Tension gradually builds as it seems ever more likely that there will be horrible consequences. Near the end I was holding the book open at a tight right angle and covering the bottom half of pages so my eyes wouldn’t jump ahead and spoil the climax. Brilliant writing, disturbing and moving.

[Leila · Rating 5 out of 5]

This left me in a sort of glassy-eyed awe. And with a strong compulsion to start again at the beginning and just…take it apart and see what I missed the first time through. Also, repression has been on my mind lately, and this spoke to me in some ways.

As the 1967 Sexual Offences Act (decriminalizing same sex relationships for adult men in England and Wales) is debated and ultimately passes, Mr F has an awakening. For the last 33 years, he’s been employed as a furrier on Skin Lane. Each day is much like the one before until two things happen: 1) he begins having recurring and disturbing dreams of a naked young man tied up in his bathroom and 2) he takes on an apprentice at work dubbed Beauty who looks like the person in his dream. The story unfolds slowly but with gripping tension as we follow Mr F through his daily life. As the months progress—along with the making of a special coat—Mr F clears away the layers of conditioning and doubt and repression that obscure who he is at heart. All the while, he’s employed in a trade that exists to enable people to wear skins that aren’t their own.

"Men brought their women to be dressed in fur because they thought it was right and proper; they thought it bestowed on woman all the qualities they should have — elegance; obviousness; animal heat. It put all her secrets right where they needed them to be — on the outside."

Of course, Mr F’s secret isn’t safe to wear on the outside and so he represses it. He looks at the newspaper and decides that none of it applies to him, not even the parts that very much apply to him. When his dreams return again and again he wants them to go away. But they don’t let up, and then he’s letting himself look closer. There’s this line that made me kind of hold my breath and think, “yes, that.”

"That's right. Being allowed to stare."

This perfectly encompasses that feeling of wanting so badly to look when looking is very much against The Rules. After that, Mr F begins to look at the people on the sidewalk on his way to work, at fellow passengers on the train, and eventually, at Beauty. Desire builds a day at a time, and with it, his recognition and ownership of who he is. More than lust, what he years for is simple intimacy: to look, to touch, to kiss, to sleep next to.

Even while Mr F is denying things to himself, he’s training Beauty in the skin trade using adages like, "It all comes down to a choice of skin” and "Never waste your time working on a spoilt skin." Which hints, at least subconsciously, toward an awareness of his own skin. Unless I’m just reading too much into this skin business. But then, when he gets home from work, he methodically scrubs the smell from his job off his hands.

Toward the end, as the truth gets closer to the surface, we get a lot of caged animal imagery. The animals before they’ve been cut for a coat hanging up around the shop, animals in glass museum exhibits, Mr F pacing his apartment as the beast takes hold. The animal/beast element feels the most honest, where the skin/beauty element encompasses the legal/social/religious standards that force people into skins that aren’t their own. The people who abbreviate Mr Freeman to Mr F. There’s this great scene where Mr F decides in his imagination to free all the animals in the museum.

"Now he is grown up, and knows that he can do anything he wants....Soon his wish is granted...one by one the rows of cases begin to smash and splinter, birthing their captives into freedom."

And then the destruction of his own cage is so ridiculously beautiful.

There’s so much more I don’t even know how to talk about (like the scene where Mr F says “I do” to Beauty in the church). I’m sure I’ll re-read in the future.

[Chris Zable · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is more challenging to read than my usual fare, but I'm glad I persevered. Set in the year that sex between men and abortion were both legalized in the UK, it follows a man with a very closed-down, regimented life as that closed system begins to break down and open up in a time of great social change. Mr. F stands for all the generations of queer men stuck in silence and obscurity because their love was illegal to express and for all those of us who find it hard to expand out into the fullest selves we could be. Rewards close reading.

[Lucija · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5. I wish I could do this book more justice with my review, but perhaps I just have to accept that I can't. Gorgeous, atmospheric, dark read with layers upon layers. I only wish that it went in a different direction in the climax, but I can't fault it for doing what it did. This is the type of book where I went to its Goodreads page and left shocked that it's not considered a classic of some sort

[kimberly_rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

*wipes sweaty brow; releases held breath* Dear lord! From the absolutely haunting first scene with the small boy's final act before going to sleep to that final scene with Beauty and Mr. F...!

This book is important--it made alive, gave faces to, several historic moments in 1967 Britain. I would never have felt these moments the way I did reading this book if I had merely read them in a history text book.

I've always been drawn to the tale of Beauty and the Beast in its many forms, but I have never read a more empathetic, humanistic version; the beast and the beauty are both two individuals and seamlessly woven into one stunning, complex individual.

I was enthralled for the several nights it took me to read this book. After turning the last page, I sat there for half an hour, simply piecing everything together (in copious scribblings on scraps of paper!), realizing all the connections and deeper meanings woven throughout. This is a masterpiece. My mind was spinning through the whole book.

And the ending, while not exactly delightfully satisfying (I could take a quarter of a star off for only telling me about his work history, not his interpersonal history, but I won't) filled me with a unshakable conviction that Mr Freeman's choked off word became vocal, in the forefront of his new awareness, his new life, and he lived with his long unspoken, desperately desired word shaping his life. The words of his final letter assured me that he at least knew what to seek, and Beauty, although youthfully cruel and immature, gave him the very awareness he needed to move forward.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5.

Mr F, the buttoned up central character, is single and lives alone. He works in the fur trade in Skin Lane in the City. Set in his ways, aloof and, apart from his perfectionism at work, a largely unknown quantity. But what goes on in his mind? We find out.

It's a haunting book, sadly believable. Well written and evocative, especially the daily grind of working in London in a job which has had its day, at a time which is not that far distant but which fortunately now seems light years away.

It is both original and well written. I recommend it.

[D. Fox · Rating 5 out of 5]

Last time I was that impressed by a book was when I read Giovanni's Room
Or maybe I'm even more now.

If I were to share my favorite quotes, that would be at least 40% of the book....
it's brilliant and it'll stay with me for a very long time.
I'll probably be back for an actual review, but let the hangover pass.

[Kirsten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tucked tight in dreamy
Anguish, he waits to unfold—
Skin? The boy? His self?

[Sophie Carlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A heartbreaking book with one of the most peculiar narrators I've ever come across. A beautiful LGBT read.

[Mary W. Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

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, 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.wordpr...

[sphamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the eeriest and most atmospheric books I've read in a long time - a story about obsession and loneliness, set in the oppressively hot London summer of 1967. It's the summer homosexuality was decriminalised, but the central character, Mr F, is almost unaware of that. He's working as a furrier in the fur district in the City which is now long gone, haunted by disturbingly violent dreams, leading a ferociously disciplined solitary life, when everything he has repressed returns to overturn his life.

There's a quote on the cover from Will Self comparing it to Simenon and Highsmith, both of which are fair comparisons, I think. Highly recommended.