Skin Lane — Neil Bartlett

Shortlisted for the 2007 Costa Novel Award

“I read Skin Lane with one eye closed out of sheer animal terror. Then, unimaginably, it brought me to tears; what a work of art -- so unexpected and heartbreaking and lovely.” -- Armistead Maupin

“A powerful and complex story of sexual obsession. . . . A profoundly original meditation on thwarted desire.” -- Patrick McGrath

“Skin Lane welds itself to your hands from first to last. Textured, teeming with menace and deeply moving, it is an extremely fine piece of writing.” -- The Times (London)

“A fiendishly taut little psycho-shocker.” -- Will Self

At forty-seven, Mr. F's working life on London's Skin Lane is one governed by calm, precision, and routine. So when he starts to have recurring nightmares, he does his best to ignore them. The images that appear in his dreams are disturbing -- Mr. F can't think of where they have come from. After all, he's an ordinary middle-aged man.

As London's backstreets begin to swelter in the long, hot summer of 1967, Mr. F's nightmares become an obsession. A chance encounter adds a face to the body that nightly haunts him, and the torments of his restless 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, this is Neil Bartlett's fiercest piece of writing yet: cruel, erotic, and tender.

Neil Bartlett is an award-winning English novelist and theater director. He has directed on numerous occasions for the Royal Shakespeare Company.