Customer Reviews
millefeuille - By: D. H. Dugan, 27 Mar 2008 
NB's best written work. It demands a patience of the reader which reflects the endurance of it's protagonist.
Wonderfully suspenseful, in an old fashioned, crafted way. Sublimely layered story telling which takes you to the brink so many times...
It is slow & intense, this will keep your attention.
A tense layered psychological thriller - By: Nick Alexander, 26 Feb 2008 This stunning novel creates psychological tension, not through the endless shocks & horrors typical of the video generation, but through layer upon layer of authorial craft, slicing & shaving its way to the heart of a man. An unusuallly incomunicative creepy man.
The result is engaging & tense, intriguing & 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.
Moving and profound - By: Dabby Northmead, 06 Feb 2008 I found this book a most enthrallling & moving read & my excitement & enjoyment increased as my reading progressed. What a joy to have this book to return to after a day at work. The theme of deeply thwarted, hidden desire in the hot summer of 1967 is beautifully handled & convincing. The ending is moving & profound. Overalll, a very impressive novel quite unlike anything I have read before.
Frustratingly poor - By: Ben Wilkinson, 31 Jan 2008 
Skin Lane could have been gripping & full of suspense; however it was dragged out & predictable. The climax was non existent & I was left frustrated & annoyed at having wasted two weeks in reading the book.
As well as the painfully slow build up, I found Bartlett's narration very annoying. Instead of leading the reader into their own views & imagination, the author would chip in with comments such as `I don't know about you but I think.......' And `you are now probably thinking that........' for me this was too much & I found I was not left to make up my own mind on situations. Also there could have been more subtle & intriguing links made to Beauty & the Beast, but callling one of the characters Beauty! To me this was too obvious.
This could have been a great short story, but I felt it was over worked & ended up being rather poor. Don't believe Will Self's endorsement!!!
Astounding! - By: Fry'sBoyRemus, 07 Sep 2007 Skin Lane is very quiet, & very profound. It tells the story of Mr F, who works in Skin Lane making fur coats. His is a very banal & orderly existance, until one night he dreams (a thing he never does) of a naked boy hanging in his bathroom. The boy in question, nicknamed 'Beauty', works with Mr F, who becomes obsessed with him. It it extremely moving & there are minor references & paralllels to Beauty & the Beast. The ending is astounding, as is everything that leads up to it. Bartlett has a very eerie way of connecting past events with the present. This book is definately worth reading!
