Under The Skin
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
With an introduction by David Mitchell
Isserley spends most of her time driving. But why is she so interested in picking up hitchhikers? And why are they always male, well-built and alone?
An utterly unpredictable and macabre mystery, Under the Skin is a genre-defying masterpiece.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A strange woman named Isserley roams the Scottish Highlands in search of juicy, well-muscled hitchhikers in Faber's menacing but unfulfilling debut novel (after Some Rain Must Fall, a collection of short stories). The opening chapters are suffused with an almost palpable sense of dread: Isserley picks up one hitchhiker after another and engages them in conversation, measuring them against a set of criteria of which the reader, as yet, is unaware. Some of the men are discarded and some are kept; in the process the reader learns that Isserley herself is oddly shaped, with breasts too large, legs too short, and scars everywhere. Faber's pacing here is masterful, with clues precisely dropped and details ominously described. But once Faber reveals the reason Isserley is collecting the hitchhikers (and it's truly bizarre), the book turns from horror to allegory and begins to run out of steam. The central conceit of the allegory is repugnant, but also unimpressive; it feels like something animal rights extremists might have cooked up after watching Soylent Green. Faber possesses an undeniable gift for grotesque imagery ("He grinned so broadly it was like an incision slicing his head in two"), but his unsettling prose doesn't adequately flesh out the underdeveloped premise of the story. Still, the Dutch-born and Australian-raised Faber is a strange and promising new talent, and his next novel might better use the macabre skills he so unnervingly displays here.
Customer Reviews
Excellent
I read this book after seeing the film. It describes an interesting and slightly disturbing view of this planet and its inhabitants through the eyes of an alien. Probably not for everyone but I really enjoyed it.
Phenominal
I don't know how some people mange to get an ipad setting it up getting an iTunes account then getting an iBook without really understanding anything about it then giving a bad review ????!!!
Beware - Wierd book
Bought this book based upon the sample when it appeared to be about real, if slightly crazy, people. Feel tricked that it turned out to be science fiction/distopian fiction. Only buy it if you are into weird stuff.