Second Skin (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780811216449)

Skipper, an ex-World War II naval Lieutenant and the narrator of Second Skin, interweaves past and present--what he refers to as his "naked history"--in a series of episodes that tell the story of a volatile life marked by pitiful losses, as well as a more elusive, overwhelming, joy. The past: the suicides of his father, wife and daughter, the murder of his son-in-law, a brutal rape, and subsequent mutiny at sea. The present: caring for his granddaughter on a "northern" island where he works as an artificial inseminator of cows, and attempts to reclaim the innocence with which he faced the tragedies of his earlier life. Combining unflinching descriptions of suffering with his sense of beauty, Hawkes is a master of nimble and sensuous prose who makes the awful and mundane fantastic, and occasionally makes the fantastic surreal.

Author: John Hawkes
ISBN-10: 0811216446
ISBN-13: 9780811216449
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Language: English
Published: 11/28/2005
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.54lbs
Size: 7.94h x 5.34w x 0.56d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 12/01/2005 pg. 187