Skin And Bone
  • Published: 30 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446464267
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320

Skin And Bone

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Introducing a powerful new voice to British fiction, a novel which dissects the social and erotic tensions at large in a small northern town.

Artie lives in Slipp - a tawdry, urban setting, a mixture of big estates and what's left of the old town. When his father died, he inherited the family fishmongers on the High Street. He could have hauled himself out of Slipp, gone to college, were it not for looking after his mum. Artie is a good-looking guy. He's married to the gorgeous, middle-class, university-educated Madelaine, who he's known since school. She is confident and independent and works in the theatre.

There are two big estates in Slipp at war with each other, and tensions rise as Artie gets caught up in a ugly brawl in a pub leaves the brother of one of Slipp's hard men maimed, setting off a grim and threatening chain of events.

Artie's main obsession of late is that his wife is having an affair. For some time he has been collecting evidence to trap her. He rifles her handbag, looking for telephone numbers, unfamiliar names, he inspects her underwear for signs of illicit sex, and tries to second-guess what she might be doing to cover her tracks. Gradually a picture of his paranoia begins to emerge, but equally Madelaine's behaviour is questionable.

When Artie becomes convinced that Madelaine's affair is with the local property developer, who wants Artie out of the shop, he takes matters into his own hands and as the tension of these two parallel obsessions tightens, Artie brings about his own, dramatic resolutions.

'Shocking and grimly funny... This is a book soaked in disquieting atmosphere and threaded with thrillerish tension. It is erotic; brutal in its portrayal of urban squalor and poverty; sparky and pacey. A sharp novel with a vivid contemporary feel' Lesley Glaister
  • Published: 30 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781446464267
  • Imprint: Transworld Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 320
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About the author

Gareth Creer

Gareth Creer grew up in Manchester and spent eight years working in the City. He gave up a lucrative career to commit himself to writing fulltime. He took the MA in Creative Writing at Sheffield Hallam, and since October 1999 has been Writer in Residence at Leicester Prison in the Young Offenders unit. He is now also the Lecturer in Creative Writing at John Moore's University in Liverpool. He is the author of three novels, Skin and Bone, Cradle to Grave and Big Sky.

Also by Gareth Creer

Jonny Lambert's Bear and Bird: Make Friends
Cradle To Grave
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Praise for Skin And Bone

'Shocking and grimly funny...threaded with thrillerish tension' Lesley Glaister

'That the ugly anatomy of an age of violent fragmentation should prove such enjoyable, entertaining reading is testimony to the power of this terrifically accomplished first novel; to the absolute conviction of its tone, and the good-humoured melancholy of its narrator' The Scotsman

'This book is soaked in disquieting atmosphere...It is erotic, brutal in its portrayal of urban squalor and poverty; sparky and pacey with a vivid contemporary feel' Lesley Glaister

'Would-be scribes of urban deprivation should take note. The prose is sparse, controlled yet wonderfully cinematic. The characters have a vibrancy and honesty that is impossible to brush over. A disquieting black humour pervades rendering them utterly convincing' City Life

'Shocking and grimly funny...threaded with thrillerish tension' Lesley Glaister

'That the ugly anatomy of an age of violent fragmentation should prove such enjoyable, entertaining reading is testimony to the power of this terrifically accomplished first novel; to the absolute conviction of its tone, and the good-humoured melancholy of its narrator' The Scotsman

'This book is soaked in disquieting atmosphere...It is erotic, brutal in its portrayal of urban squalor and poverty; sparky and pacey with a vivid contemporary feel' Lesley Glaister

'Would-be scribes of urban deprivation should take note. The prose is sparse, controlled yet wonderfully cinematic. The characters have a vibrancy and honesty that is impossible to brush over. A disquieting black humour pervades rendering them utterly convincing' City Life

'Shocking and grimly funny...threaded with thrillerish tension' Lesley Glaister

'That the ugly anatomy of an age of violent fragmentation should prove such enjoyable, entertaining reading is testimony to the power of this terrifically accomplished first novel; to the absolute conviction of its tone, and the good-humoured melancholy of its narrator' The Scotsman

'This book is soaked in disquieting atmosphere...It is erotic, brutal in its portrayal of urban squalor and poverty; sparky and pacey with a vivid contemporary feel' Lesley Glaister

'Would-be scribes of urban deprivation should take note. The prose is sparse, controlled yet wonderfully cinematic. The characters have a vibrancy and honesty that is impossible to brush over. A disquieting black humour pervades rendering them utterly convincing' City Life

'Shocking and grimly funny...threaded with thrillerish tension' Lesley Glaister

'That the ugly anatomy of an age of violent fragmentation should prove such enjoyable, entertaining reading is testimony to the power of this terrifically accomplished first novel; to the absolute conviction of its tone, and the good-humoured melancholy of its narrator' The Scotsman

'This book is soaked in disquieting atmosphere...It is erotic, brutal in its portrayal of urban squalor and poverty; sparky and pacey with a vivid contemporary feel' Lesley Glaister

'Would-be scribes of urban deprivation should take note. The prose is sparse, controlled yet wonderfully cinematic. The characters have a vibrancy and honesty that is impossible to brush over. A disquieting black humour pervades rendering them utterly convincing' City Life