't get them down again? Will Self ?A modern day fairy tale dripping with the tension of desire and repression that lingers long in the memory after the final page has been turned. The journey may not be comfortable but it is certainly compelling? Attitude ?Intense, erotic and highly theatrical, with a shocking climax and, as with all Bartlett?s work, a complex take on our history? Gay Times ?With Skin Lane, Bartlett further demonstrates his skills as a creative polymath of the highest order? Dazed & Confused ?Charting the outer limits of desire and personal rejection with compassion, made all the more striking because of the unsparing clarity of Bartlett?s vision, Skin Lane pulls off the triple whammy of being shocking, sexy and tenderly humane? Metro ?Claustrophobic and tense... Bartlett is an expert in the stories we tell ourselves and why we tell them? Time Out ?A beautiful book; well-proportioned with supple, sensuous text and an aching raw heart at its core? Aesthetica ?A superb writer... a grisly story that?s beautifully constructed and evocatively written? What?s On In London ?Bartlett is a storyteller well aware of how to exert control over his audience. He wastes little time before demonstrating that he can, in a moment, stop your heart, or break it; possibly even, you suspect, rip it out and show it to you... Skin Lane welds itself to your hands from first to last. Textured, teeming with menace and, at the end, deeply moving, it is an extremely fine piece of writing? The Times ?Brilliantly eerie... constantly surprising... captures vividly the atmosphere of the changing London of the 60s... But it?s in his depiction of a specific kind of helpless and fearful love that Bartlett excels? Guardian ?Original, disturbing... beautifully written, this is an always fascinating work? Literary Review
?Neil Bartlett is a protean polymath of a creator, ceaselessly inventing new artistic worlds - and then conquering them.
Skin Lane is a fiendishly taut little psycho-shocker that recalls Simenon at his most hardboiled and Highsmith at her creepiest. It made the hairs rise on the back of my neck, and I still can't get them down * Will Self *
British author Bartlett (Mr. Clive and Mr. Page) deserves to win acclaim on this side of the Atlantic for this complex and rich journey into the heart of a lonely man, framed as a bedtime story. . . . This remarkable novel's image and characters will linger long in the reader's memory * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *