Skin

Publisher's Summary

Tess welds metal. Bibi molds flesh. Together, they make art that moves, dances, burns, and bleeds, and the Surgeons of the Demolition become the hottest ticket in town. But Bibi wants more, always more, no matter who gets hurt. And Tess needs to burn, no matter what.

Thirty years ago, "Skin" changed the landscape of dark fiction forever. And now the girls are back in town.

©2013 Kathe Koja (P)2019 David N. Wilson

Critic Reviews

"A dark and frightening work by a major talent whose prose reads like a collaboration between Clive Barker and William S. Burroughs. Highly recommended." (Library Journal)

"Humorless novel about art punks in an unnamed present-day city...the novel, like the art of the characters it portrays, is a sustained exercise in style over substance." (Publishers Weekly) 

"The language Koja employs is fresh and astonishing, harsh yet beautiful." (Washington Post Book World)

highly addictive one of my all time favorites.....

loved it, a true masterpiece of horror and addiction. this book was my ticket to the Koja train. I recommend you seek out "Strange Angels" and the "Cipher " as well.

Spartan race through a Gwar show at an art gallery

Kathe Koja's writing is poetry not prose. Listeners that look at the Demoiselles D'avigion and don't see art may be in for a disappointment. Then again if you don't see the violent sexist exoticism in Picasso's painting you may also fail to appreciate this detailed, fast-paced horror-thriller. Koja approaches prose like an artist-poet; knowing mastery of language is not synonymous implementation. the book is not supposed to be a comfortable read. It is discriptively and structurally anxious emotional and sensual horrifying and beautiful; Certainlty not Renaissance beautiful.

My single complaint is the reader. the book isn't easy. but there are one or two places where she gets so caught in the fast pacing that the telling becomes difficult to deCIPHER (I couldn't stop myself [MAKE THE AUDIOBOOK VERSION NOW, PLEASE!), so I needed to rewind.