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: #479,312 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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 Irish noir peers into the American dark psyche, May 9, 2007

By 

Ed Lynskey, "author of ASK THE DICE and THE Z... (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews

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

Irish noir meister Ken Bruen offers his prickly, ironic, and often humorous view on what it means to wear "American skin". Stephen Blake who served in the English army does a bank heist with his Irish pal Tommy and IRA sniper Stapleton. The botched attempt sends Blake packing to New York City, and then west to Las Vegas and Tucson. Extreme violence and hard living are the currency in the modern noir (and sometimes real) world. The whacko Dade addicted to Tammy Wynette and dope is sure to become a classic villain like Hannibal Lecter. Fans of George Pelecanos and Bruce Springsteen should enjoy reading Mr. Bruen's seamless, satiric, and, yes, unsettling American Skin.