Young Skins by Colin Barrett; Leaving the Sea by Ben Marcus; Things to Make and Break by May-Lan Tan - review by Memphis Barker

Memphis Barker

Lives of Others

Young Skins

By

Jonathan Cape 175pp £14.99

Leaving the Sea

By

Granta Books 261pp £16.99

Things to Make and Break

By

CB editions 206pp £8.99
 

Colin Barrett’s debut collection, which last month won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, is a triumph. We are mostly in Glanbeigh, a decrepit Irish town whose elemental properties seem to be pebble dash, dried blood, lipstick and drink. But the final scenes take pleasure in shifting the ground beneath the reader, leaving him or her with one foot in a different place.

‘Stand Your Skin’ deposits us in the company of Bat, a withdrawn young man with hair down to his backside and a face that was once stove in by a thug’s kick. He comes home after a rare night out and passes his mother (‘old dear’) on the way to

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