Skin

by Tobias Hill

In an isolated trailer home in the far north of Japan, an old criminal scrutinizes his tattooed skin while he waits for the past to catch up with him. A year later, the life of a young policeman breaks down as he investigates a tattooed corpse and the history of death and guilt embedded in its skin. From the Japanese underworld to midnight in the London Zoo aquarium, Skin charts the lives of people in a world made stark and fantastical. The grief of a young computer programmer who cannot erase the ghostly memories of his twins. The vicious logic of the games played by children while their parents sip drinks under parasols. And London Zoo, where the disappearance of dead animals is blamed on the 'Featherman', an eerie bodysnatcher who passes through London's wastelands and derelict spaces, leaving no trace for the feathers of green humming-birds.

Genres: Short Stories

208 pages, Paperback

First published May 18, 1998

About the author

Tobias Hill was an award-winning English poet, essayist, writer of short stories and novelist.

He was born in Kentish Town, north London, to parents of German Jewish and English extraction: his maternal grandfather was the brother of Gottfried Bermann, confidant of Thomas Mann and, as owner of S. Fischer Verlag, German literature's leading publisher-in-exile during the Second World War. Hill was educated at Hampstead School, a comprehensive institution, and Sussex University.

Hill first came to attention in the 1990s as a poet and author of short stories, with early work appearing in magazines such as The Frogmore Papers: he later became established as a novelist. As a poet Hill published four collections, Year of the Dog (1995), Midnight in the City of Clocks (1996), influenced by his experience of life in Japan, Zoo (1998) and Nocturne in Chrome & Sunset Yellow (2006): the last of these was described by The Guardian as "A vital, luminous collection...it is rare to come across a collection of poetry that you know with certainty you will still be reading years from now, but for me, this is such a book."

Hill's only collection of short stories, Skin (1997), was serialized on BBC Radio 4, was shortlisted for the 1998 John Llewellyn Rhys/Mail on Sunday Prize, and won the International PEN/Macmillan Silver Pen Award.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Gary Meades · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of short stories, linked with recurring motifs, themes and phrases, filled with sadness, loss, escape, lurking violence and social isolation. Beautiful prose, but distinctly off kilter and strange.

[mentalexotica · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book begins really well. The first story centres around the Japanese underworld and is told in vivid, striking detail that lingers in your mind long after you're done with the book. But as the pages turn, that intense engagement begins to lapse and turn lackadaisically soft. By the third story, I admit my attention was on weak ground and by the time I got to Brolly, I did not want Tobias Hill to make love to my eyes any longer.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Odd, haunting short stories in Hill's characteristically cool and elegant prose style. Strange and surprising, even on a second read.