This novel starts off with a sentence you will not easily get out of your brain. (Whether you want to says a lot about who you are as a person. I was happy to let it live rent-free for a while.)
It proceeds with a tale of Kenneth, a narcissistic, nihilistic car salesman who has a sudden fall from grace and ends up living on the streets. It’s lousy timing, as it happens right when a serial killer starts murdering homeless people and removing their skin. (At least we hope, for the sake of the victims, that’s the order of operations.)
It took me a while to get into the groove with this book, partly because the main character is so (purposefully) unlikable. But “The Skin Room” takes a surprise turn at the midpoint and held my interest from there. Some of the concepts described are delightfully ghastly. And there are a few moments of genuinely intriguing philosophizing.
4 out of 5.
