The Skin Chairs - Barbara Comyns - Ben Winch

[Luke]

The Skin Chairs, Barbara Comyns, 1962, England, NOVEL

"In a novel which takes its name from a set of chairs made from human skin... you might expect a general tone of grotesqueness which is actually missing here – or at least, it's there, but it's subtle, underlying an almost pastoral rendering of an ever-so-slightly-disadvantaged childhood that brings to mind Witold Gombrowicz's stated aim of 'smuggling contraband' inside of traditional forms. But Comyns is subtler than Gombrowicz, and it's hard to tell what her aim might be, aside from to entertain, to provoke, to mesmerise, which is something she does slowly but surely over the course of her patiently-unfolding narrative..."

(Ben Winch, review)

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