Skin
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4.0 • 2 Ratings
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- £2.49
Publisher Description
Tess welds metal. Bibi molds flesh. Together, they make art that moves,
dances, burns, and bleeds, and the Surgeons of the Demolition become the
hottest ticket in town. But Bibi wants more, always more, no matter who gets
hurt. And Tess needs to burn, no matter what.
Thirty years ago, SKIN changed the landscape of dark fiction forever. And now the girls are back in town.
"A dark and frightening work by a major talent whose prose reads like a
collaboration between Clive Barker and William S. Burroughs. Highly
recommended." - Library Journal
"[H]umorless novel about art punks in an unnamed present-day city...the
novel, like the art of the characters it portrays, is a sustained exercise
in style over substance." - Publishers Weekly
"The language Koja employs is fresh and astonishing, harsh yet beautiful." -
Washington Post Book World
"The biggest flaw in this novel is the writing. Koja often abandons grammar,
sentence structure, and, as a result, clarity. Many of her incomplete
sentences are simply unintelligible." - The Tech
"Unexpectedly poignant ... Sentences as sharp and to the point as a scrotal
stud." - SPIN
"[W]ill leave many fighting off its overload." - Kirkus Reviews
"Not an easy read, but perversely beautiful." - Vector
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This humorless novel about art punks in an unnamed present-day city is long on form and short on content. The main character, Tess Bajac, is an earnest young sculptor who lives for her work, so much so that readers may well long for her to do something besides make anther sculpture. She does all too rarely. Tess meets Bibi Bloss, a fey dancer, and they establish Surgeons of the Demolition, a performance art troupe whose shows combine Tess's mobile, menacing, robotlike constructions with Bibi's dancers and much fake blood. Koja devotes endless pages to details of their productions, and the vicissitudes of the protagonists' relationship have to suffice for drama. Their main source of conflict is Bibi's growing compulsion to mortify her flesh via piercing, tattooing and scarification. Readers will find it hard to relate to such a rarefied concern, especially since the roots of Bibi's obsession are never explored. Koja ( The Cipher ) has a considerable talent for evoking atmosphere, but her style, an obscurantist mix of stark minimalism and florid gush, further distances the characters from the reader and hampers the novel's already minimal movement. The ending is merely a jarring, long-overdue bit of business; on the whole the novel, like the art of the characters it portrays, is a sustained exercise in style over substance.
