Under the SkinUnder the Skin
Title rated 3.75 out of 5 stars, based on 138 ratings(138 ratings)
Book, 2000
Current format, Book, 2000, 1st ed, Available .In a surreal portrait of contemporary society run amok, Isserley spends her life picking up hitchhikers, a diverse array of trailer trash, graduate students, thugs, and philosophers, whose only interest for Isserley is whether they have families and whether they have muscles
In a surreal portrait of contemporary society run amok, Isserley spends her life picking up hitchhikers, a diverse array of trailer trash, graduate students, thugs, and philosophers, whose only interest for Isserley is whether they have families and whether they have muscles. A first novel. 25,000 first printing.
Isserley cruises the roads of the Scottish Highlands sizing up male hitchhikers. She is looking for beefy specimens with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny - like a kid peering up over the steering wheel - and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she is a remarkable and unforgettable character.
Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch - trailer trash and traveling postgraduates, thugs and philosophers. As she drives them deeper and deeper into the mysterious splendors of the Scottish wilds, they open up to her, revealing a complex and varied picture of life on earth - but Isserley is listening for other clues. Clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. If she decides they're worth the risk, she takes them farther than they ever dreamed of going. But takes them where?
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain-physical and spiritual-and their conversation. Michel Faber's work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory announcing the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured.
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain-physical and spiritual-and their conversation. Michel Faber's work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory announcing the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured.
In a surreal portrait of contemporary society run amok, Isserley spends her life picking up hitchhikers, a diverse array of trailer trash, graduate students, thugs, and philosophers, whose only interest for Isserley is whether they have families and whether they have muscles. A first novel. 25,000 first printing.
Isserley cruises the roads of the Scottish Highlands sizing up male hitchhikers. She is looking for beefy specimens with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny - like a kid peering up over the steering wheel - and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Scarred and awkward, yet strangely erotic and threatening, she is a remarkable and unforgettable character.
Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch - trailer trash and traveling postgraduates, thugs and philosophers. As she drives them deeper and deeper into the mysterious splendors of the Scottish wilds, they open up to her, revealing a complex and varied picture of life on earth - but Isserley is listening for other clues. Clues about who might miss them if they should disappear. If she decides they're worth the risk, she takes them farther than they ever dreamed of going. But takes them where?
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain-physical and spiritual-and their conversation. Michel Faber's work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory announcing the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured.
Isserley picks up hitchhikers with big muscles. She, herself, is tiny-like a kid peering up over the steering wheel. She has a remarkable face and wears the thickest corrective lenses anyone has ever seen. Her posture is suggestive of some spinal problem. Her breasts are perfect; perhaps implants. She is strangely erotic yet somehow grotesque, vulnerable yet threatening. Her hitchhikers are a mixed bunch of men-trailer trash and travelling postgrads, thugs and philosophers. But Isserley is only interested in whether they have families and whether they have muscles. Then, it's only a question of how long she can endure her pain-physical and spiritual-and their conversation. Michel Faber's work has been described as a combination of Roald Dahl and Franz Kafka, as Somerset Maugham shacking up with Ian McEwan. At once humane and horrifying, Under the Skin takes us on a heart-thumping ride through dangerous territory-our own moral instincts and the boundaries of compassion. A grotesque and comical allegory announcing the arrival of an exciting talent, rich and assured.
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- New York : Harcourt, c2000.
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