Skins of Youth [Deluxe Edition] [Paperback]

Charlee Jacob (Author), Mehitobel Wilson (Author), Eric Wilson (Illustrator), Chris Trammell (Illustrator), David G. Barnett (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2002

A two story chapbook featuring extremely dark and disturbing horror fiction. Each story is 10,000 words and is beautifully illustrated by Erik Wilson. "Immortality" by Charlee Jacob tells the story of Mihail who looks into the collection of mirrors his grandmother has given him in hopes that one day he won't see himself. And when this happens he knows he will finally be immortal. Her tales of vampires meant to scare Mihail only serve to tantalize him and Mihail spends his nights trying to find the one who will make him immortal. He commits atrocities that will hopefully push him beyond the edge of mortality. Instead, they just push him to the edge of sanity. "Growing Out Of It" by Mehitobel Wilson tells the story of Ted who has noticed some odd things about his friends, Meg and Dannyboy. They see to be changing. And it's not just them that are changing, Ted feels himself changing-growing apart from his friends and himself. Maybe hooking up with a new band will help him change his life. Maybe... Or maybe it's too late... Maybe his life is growing up without him. Published in an edition of 300 chapbooks and 52 hardcovers all signed and numbered.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Charlee Jacob is a native Texan now living in Irving with her husband and five cats. She has been a slinger of hash, an actress, a digger for dinosaur bones, and a seller of designer rags. She has had over 600 poems and stories published. Her first novel, This Symbiotic Fascination, was published by Necro in 1998 and received nominations for both The International Horror Guild Award and The Bram Stoker Award. In 1999 Necro published her first fiction collection, Dread In The Beast, and the title novella was nominated for The Stoker. The following year Delirium published a second collection, Up, Out Of Cities That Blow Hot And Cold, and this was also nominated for The Stoker. Her work has also received nominations for The Rhysling Award (from The Science Fiction Poetry Association), The Darrell Award and The Pushcart Prize. Leisure Books has just reprinted her first novel and will published a second, Soma in 2003. Delirium will publish a third collection, Guises, in summer 2002. Another novel, Dark Moods, will be available soon from Ebooksonthe.net. She has or will soon have fiction in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror #12, Son of Brainbox, The Darker Side, Dark Arts, The Year?s Best Fantasy and Horror #15, Decadence, Raw, Horror Garage, and Extremes: volumes 2, 3 and 4.

Mehitobel Wilson lives in Georgia, where she collects all things leopard, Karloff, or cast-off. Her preferred recreational activity is sleep; pool and Tekken 2 meet her quota of athleticism. She was nominated for a 2000 Bram Stoker award for her work as Gothic.net?s Nonfiction editor. Her fiction has appeared in Carpe Noctem, Gothic.net, Chiaroscuro, Peepshow, Brainbox: The Real Horror, and Brainbox 2: Son of Brainbox, among other places. New stories are scheduled to appear in Darkside 2: The Darker Side (Roc, 2002) and Dead But Dreaming: New Excursions into the Lovecraftian Universe (DarkTales, 2002.) Full information, and photographs of her junkyard dog, may be found on her website.

Product Details

• Paperback: 56 pages
• Publisher: Necro Publications; 1st [Signed] edition (June 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889186279
• ISBN-13: 978-1889186276
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,537,412 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely chapbook of vampiric and expectorating madness, April 19, 2004

By 

Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Skins of Youth (Paperback)

There are two stories in Skins Of Youth, the first "Immortality" by Charlee Jacob is the tale of a young circus acrobat longing to become one of the Vampires in his Grandmother's strange tales. Along his search and active intentions to kill himself, he discovers a strange family secret about his mother, why she went missing years ago, and the truth about Grandma's traveling, pickup-bed herb garden.

Intensely well written, there is subtlety in Ms. Jacob's prose that haunts your mind with the images and thoughts that should be abnormal to the human brain. Very, very good story. Enjoy!

The second story "Growing Out Of It" is by Mehitobel Wilson, a talented up-and-coming new writer. In this dark tale of maturing out of the frivolities of youth, she has imagined a story of a disgusting and intriguing way of getting rid of the irresponsible things we do when youth still blooms within us; those actions that take us from the clubs and nightlife to suits and minivans and eight-to-five jobs.

Ted just wants to party with his friends, Meg and Dannyboy, especially after loosing his guitar gig with the band Fister Faster. Drinking himself into poor health and a wasted state of being, he hardly notices that his skin has been itching a lot, though he notices that Meg has what seems to be a case of ringworm on the back of her neck.

Ted winds out bumping into Gary, a guy in smelly dreadlocks who is looking for a guitarist for their new band; and while Ted contemplates the offer, Meg grows strangely insulting towards him and Dannyboy.

Ted's drinking escalates to the point where he hallucinated vomiting up body parts; or are these hallucinations real? Did he really wake up in a pool of gummy stuff on his couch, did he really vomit up a tongue? What is happening to him, and why has Meg and Dannyboy begun acting so particularly? Don't miss out on this creepy tale of purging the past in order to move into the future; a future so bright you'll have to wear shades.

Also, I recommend taking the time to read the brief bios of these two talented authors at the end, and watch for more to come from these rising masters of the horror genre. Enjoy!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skins of Youth by Charlee Jacob & Mehitobel Wilson, June 28, 2002

By 

C. (St. Joseph, Macau) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Skins of Youth (Paperback)

See, this is why sometimes I think I'm jut not cut out for this reviewing stuff. I get a great book like this, I read it, I love it, but then I gotta explain why I did or didn't enjoy it, what I did or didn't enjoy about it.
Well, um, see it's, um, it's, there's this, uh, see . . .
It's just a great book, alright?
Skins of Youth is the 2nd in Necro Publications's chapbook line, a pair of stories about youth by Charlee Jacob and Mehitobel Wilson.
You remember youth, don't you? The time you spent between playing and realizing there's more to life than playing? The growing up period when everyone was wrong and you were God and to hell with everyone who disagreed with you, which was pretty much everyone? Charlee and Mehitobel remember that time, and they capture that "outcast" theme perfectly here. This is a very dark book--not necessarily a real HARDCORE book like you'd expect from Necro, but very dark, and very good.

It's been too long since I've read Charlee Jacob (okay, there was a story in Dead Cats Bouncing, but that was Charlee Jacob after Gerard Houarner and that's not the same thing as Charlee Jacob), and dammit if "Immortality" didn't remind me why I love her work in the first place.
A hell of a story from one of the best short story writers I've ever read, hands down.

Next is "Growing Out of It", by Mehitobel Wilson, a woman I'd never heard of before this, but one I'll be watching out for in the future, I guarantee.
If Charlee's story was all about being the outcast, Ms. Wilson's story is about finding the normalcy in that, and in building your life around it.
This woman's got a great style with a terrific sense of pacing and she writes dialogue like you wouldn't believe. Can't believe I'd never heard of her before.
There I was reading along and before I knew it--damn--the story unfolded itself to me and I understood and sat in awe until the end.

One of the things I like about this book is that these aren't just two random stories tossed together and published. These are complete stories, both authors given room to develop their plots and characters, to draw us in and keep us reading.
Top notch effort from both authors, and a fine choice for publication by Necro.
Applause all around.

4.0 out of 5 stars Gory and gruesome, August 11, 2011

By 

BarkLessWagMore (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Skins of Youth (Paperback)

This is small chapbook containing two tales filled with grue and gothy goodness.

Immortality by Charlee Jacob was my favorite of the two. It gets four stars. I thought it was genuinely creepy and it kept taking turns that I didn't anticipate. That coupled with the fact that it was set in a travelling circus-like atmosphere and is about a family with deep dark secrets is a win/win for me.

Mihail was raised, along with his many siblings, to take his place in their acrobatic show and grew up listening to his grandmother's dark tales which fascinated him. Because of her stories, he develops an insatiable lust to become immortal and as he grows becomes dangerously unhinged. I enjoy stories that feature unstable characters because you never quite know exactly what's real and what's imagined and this one worked for me. I'm going to have to look up more from this author because her writing style hooked me.

Growing Out of It by Mehitobel Wilson is about Ted who is the type of guy, though nearly 30, still acts as if he's 20. He parties like there's no tomorrow, goes clubbing on goth night, moans and groans over the breakup of his old band and he works in a Laundromat dispensing change and detergent. But he's not twenty anymore and he just isn't recovering from his drunken binges like he used to. Lately weird things have been going on with his body piercings and his memory and he's got an itch that he just can't ditch.

This story gets 3 starts because it features a Peter Pan type with a rotten personality who I didn't find very likable. When the awful body horror happens, described in glorious detail, it made me happy. I wonder what that says about me?