In her debut novel, Kathryn Barker creates an original and intriguing world where nightmares are real, monsters are heroes, and a school dress elicits pure terror. In the Skin of a Monster handles fear, good and evil, mental illness, and a community in crisis with finesse in equal measure.
The story is set largely in a literal nightmare world. It’s the dumping ground for the nightmares of the residents of Collector, an outback Australian town. Nightmares here have many shared themes – guns, death, violence and the same teen killer who killed seven students in a school shooting. She haunts the people of Collector, and therefore, so does her identical twin, the book’s protagonist, Alice.
The narration alternates between Alice from the real world and Lux from the nightmare dreamscape in which Alice soon becomes entangled. Reeling from the events of three years prior, where her identical twin sister committed a heinous crime, Alice is hardly living in reality anyway. Her slip into an otherworldly nightmare is easily believable, and doubts that she may just be hallucinating soon vanish. Lux, on the other hand, is a product of that world, where he and his best friend Ivan fight the monsters that the people of Collector conjure up each night.
Chapters are in the not-too-common second person. In many Alice narrates directly to her twin. Understandably, Alice struggles with her connection to this act of violence committed by her sister. As a twin, her face is forever linked with the crime, and her recollections of time spent in an institution make clear that she is struggling in other ways as well. The second person narration places the reader in the shoes of the killer. ‘The night before you shot up our school…’ the book begins and the reader can’t help but empathise with Alice’s fear that she might also be capable of evil.
Meanwhile, chapters narrated by Lux paint the picture of a reluctant hero. At times dashing and suave, Lux has that too-perfect Edward Cullen thing going on. It’s as though we are supposed to fall a bit in love with him for his perfection and aloofness. Thankfully, Barker undercuts this perfect anti-hero stereotype by giving us his not-at-all perfect narration. The reader knows that Lux is not always the good guy – in fact he’s kind of a jerk. What is intriguing about Lux though, is his secret. Barker expertly delivers tidbits and clues along the way to the origin of Lux in this nightmare world. Where he came from and who he is, become more and more central to everything.
In the Skin of a Monster does take some getting used to, with it’s unusual perspective and at times too-perfect anti-hero, but it is an overall good read. With her fantastically original setting and her deft treatment of loss and healing, Barker’s debut novel is well worth a read.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
By Kathryn Barker
Allen and Unwin, 2015
