American Skin [Paperback]

Ken Bruen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 10, 2007

Stephen Blake is a good man blown in bad directions. He and girlfriend Siobhan, best friend Tommy, IRA terrorist Stapleton, and a particularly American sort of psychopath named Dade, are all on a collision course somewhere between the dive bars of New York and the pitiless desert of the Southwest. This is the long-awaited American novel by Ken Bruen, the hard-boiled master of Irish noir.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

At the start of Bruen's dark tribute to the Irish fascination with the American dream, Stephen Blake is on the run after a bank heist, hoping to disappear in the desert near Tucson. He has the money, and his girlfriend, Siobhan, knows how to launder it. All he has to do is change his accent, his skin and pass as American. But John A. Stapleton, hit man for the IRA, wants more than his share of the swag, and the psychotic Dade, obsessively devoted to the music of Tammy Wynette, is wandering the Southwest like a slaughter wagon. Noir master Bruen (The Guards) effortlessly moves his story line back and forth in time, all his trademark pop culture references in place, the banshee of existential agony wailing loud. At times, though, the violence becomes cartoonish, and potential showdowns just do not rock—if you've got Frankenstein and the Wolfman in one castle, they really need to wreck some furniture for a few pages. Still, Bruen fans will be enthralled. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: Justin, Charles & Co. (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932112499
• ISBN-13: 978-1932112498
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #461,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A dark and hilarious nightmare of a book, December 14, 2006

By 

Bookreporter (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: American Skin: A Novel (Hardcover)

AMERICAN SKIN by Ken Bruen is a dark, hilarious nightmare of a book that stretches genres and concepts. Bruen's work in general and this novel in particular mines the dark places in the human psyche where Cormac McCarthy so frequently visits, though from a different side of the mirror. While McCarthy's work is almost unrelentingly grim, AMERICAN SKIN is informed with a ferocious humor that has you screaming both with laughter and in horror.

Bruen is not a native of the United States, but he is a keen and canny observer of the landscape that most residents behold only from moving vehicles whose windows are up and whose doors are locked. AMERICAN SKIN is evocative of a number of novels --- everything from William Burroughs's NAKED LUNCH to Leonard Cohen's BEAUTIFUL LOSERS, from Norman Mailer's WHY ARE WE IN VIETNAM? to James Joyce's ULYSSES --- with Bruen bouncing characters dead and alive around time and distance in this tale of greed, love and revenge, and the unintended consequences that result from all.

Stephen Blake is the primary figure in this dark vision, a Galway native who has reached a decent if rough middle age. His life consists primarily of working in a CD store, romancing a lovely bank clerk and drinking at a local pub. When given the opportunity to participate in an IRA-related heist, Blake agrees, the result of a deathbed promise and a misplaced and reluctant loyalty. Things, we are informed early, go badly, but Blake and a conspirator gamely carry on, with Blake traveling to the United States to execute the rest of the plan in the somewhat unlikely locale of Tucson.

Blake's immigration is the first step that puts him on an unforeseen and unintended collision course with an American homegrown psychopath named Dade, a tightly wound chaotic force of nature whose instinct inclines toward random acts of spontaneous violence. Bruen goes deep into the psyche of each and all concerned in AMERICAN SKIN, with a canny understanding of the inclination of men toward violence and destructive relationships, and the connections linking acts that at first blush appear unrelated.

Ostensibly a stand-alone book, AMERICAN SKIN reaches a haunting conclusion that may well be a prologue to a future event. Regardless, this is a significant work loaded with memorable characters, electrifying incidents and walking nightmares. Very highly recommended.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Cross this bloody river to the other side", December 2, 2006

By 

Gary Griffiths (Los Altos Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Skin: A Novel (Hardcover)

If Ken Bruen isn't the premier writer of noir pulp fiction today, he is certainly the most brutal. "American Skin" is Bruen's latest release, probably his most violent, and quite possibly his best - assuming you have a stomach for carnage and an appreciation for black Irish fatalism.

Yeah, this is darker than black, the nonlinear tale of Steven Blake, a Blake of infamous the Irish Galway Brakes, an ex-soldier and current drifter who unwittingly is drawn into an IRA bank robbery. Supporting Blake in Bruen's rush of halting prose that lurches and jags beautifully through 280 pages of despair and bloodshed are not one but three of the most despicable villains you're ever likely to encounter in a novel. There's Dade, the American psychopath who kills randomly for pleasure, Stapleton, and IRA terrorist with no remorse, and Sherry, a female version of Dade in a Dolly Parton skin. But there is much more to this tragedy than gore and butchery. Bruen's rendering on the friendship between Blake and Tommy - the link to the IRA heist - is painfully rendered with an unmistakably Irish sorrow. Likewise, masterful foreshadowing plots the course for a climax that can only end in despair, but with all great fiction, the payoff come alone the ride.

If you're looking for cardboard hero role models and happy stories, you've probably never heard of Ken Bruen, and should probably keep looking. But if, like an Irishman, "you're only happy when your melancholy", then "American Skin" is a must read.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty, November 23, 2011

By 

Frank J. Konopka (Shamokin, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: American Skin (Paperback)

Ken Bruen is one of my favorite authors and I read avidly every book of his that I can get. This one was published a few years ago but I only saw it for the first time a week or so ago when I was in D.C., and I bought it. Having just finished it last night, I can once again say that Mr. Bruen is a master at his craft.

This is another of his tales of Irish criminals, but most of the plot takes place in America, hence the title. The main protagonist, and the narrator of most of the book, gets involved in a bank heist with a good friend of his and an IRA member. He ends up with all of the money and, his girlfriend being in the banking business, plans to transfer it into an account and use it to establish the two of them in America. While she remains in Ireland to complete the banking transactions, he goes to New York. That's where the plot really gets going, although it's been white hot from the opening pages.

There are a lot of bad actors in this book, and no real good guys as far as I could discern. There is murder and mayhem in New York and Tucson, and a stopover in Vegas. I don't want to ruin the book for those who haven't read it, but I will say that something grotesque happens on almost every page, and the body count continues to pile up as the story goes along.

The ending is rather enigmatic, and left me wishing that there were more to the story than the author related. To sum up, if you like Ken Bruen's work as much as I do you will certainly want to read this book, but be aware that it is gruesome and quite bloody.