Under the Skin (novel)
First edition cover art
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| Author | Michel Faber |
|---|---|
| Country | Scotland |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher |
Harcourt Canongate Books |
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Publication date
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2000 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 042475638 |
Under the Skin is a 2000 novel by Michel Faber. Set in northern Scotland, it traces an extraterrestrial who, manifesting in human form, drives around the Scottish countryside picking up male hitchhikers whom she drugs and delivers to her home planet. The novel, which was Faber's debut, was shortlisted for the 2000 Whitbread Award. It was later adapted into a feature film by Jonathan Glazer.
The protagonist is Isserley, an extraterrestrial sent to Earth by a rich corporation on her planet to pick up unwary hitchhikers. She drugs them and delivers them to her compatriots, who mutilate and fatten her victims so that they can be turned into meat, as human meat, or "voddissin", is a delicacy on the aliens' barren homeworld.
The novel is darkly satirical. Its themes include sexism, big business, factory farming, and environmental decay; and reflects on more personal questions of sexual identity, humanity, snobbery, and mercy.
The novel begins with Isserley picking up hitchhikers. Gradually, it is revealed she is an alien, originally somewhat canine in form, who has been surgically altered to look like a woman, thus suffering constant pains. She takes her job seriously, and considers herself a valuable professional. Isserley has an orderly system for appraising vodsel to potentially capture. At the same time, she is spiteful of what she considers her deformed body made so for the job. The only other of her kind to undergo similar surgery to look like Homo sapiens is her direct superior, Esswis.
Isserley spends her spare time walking on the pebbled beach by her cottage, marveling at the beauty of Earth compared to her home world, where most beings are forced to live and toil underground, and the wealthy Elite live on the surface, but are still unable to tolerate being outside. Sometimes she admires wandering sheep, as they remind her of children at home and she considers the non-bipeds anthropomorphic. Isserley considers herself and her people the "human beings," and the "Homo sapiens" of Earth animals for farming. Amlis Vess, the son of her employer, visits the farm and sets four of their captives free. In response, Isserley and Esswis hunt down and shoot them. When one of their victims writes "mercy" in the dirt in front of their pursuers, Isserley pretends to not speak English, hoping to keep hidden the extent of their language capabilities.
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