Nalo Hopkinson’s “Skin Folk”
There are very few works of literature that give me pause. Reaching the end of each of Hopkinson’s masterful tales I found myself slumping back in my seat and releasing breath I didn’t realize I had been holding — looking up at the world around me to bring myself back to my own body and my own time. Evocative in the subtlety of its haunting, this collection is a truly breathtaking addition to any horror enthusiast’s bookshelf.
Consumption, repulsion, and recollection are keystones to Hopkinson’s swirling narratives. Exploring the edges of the psyche’s capacity for connection under duress, each story leaves its own uncomfortable mark.
Nalo Hopkinson — a Jamaican-born Canadian author — draws heavily from Caribbean history, language, and folklore in this collection of Afrofuturist horror stories. Tackling the suffocating weight of diasporic life; the realities of institutional racism; the sweet, delicate traumas of sexual awakenings; and the realities of queer grief, this selection of stories is set in a broad range of times, tones, and places, stretching understandings of discomfit in a contemporary literary landscape.
Skin Folk is truly an absolute must-read collection.
Riding the Red
Money Thee
Something To Hitch Meat To
Snake
Under Glass
The Glass Bottle Trick
Slow Cold Chick
Fisherman
Tan-Tan and Dry Bone
Greedy Choke Puppy
A Habit of Waste
And the Lillies-Them A-Blow
Whose Upward Flight I Love
Ganger (Ball Lightning)
Precious
This was the first work I have read by Nalo Hopkinsons, but it certainly won’t be the last. I would place it right up there with Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber in the depth and weight of its subject matter, and I’m honestly surprised I haven’t seen more work on Skin Folk considering its original publication in 2001. I do hesitate to compare Hopkinson’s work with Carter’s directly, as they are fundamentally very different and there are problems inherent with comparing a Black author’s work with that of a well-known white author’s without clear parameters in place, as it can be read as an attempt “prove” merit.
My connection between the two works is innocent in that, at the very least, they both adapt the same work at one point. Hopkinson’s The Glass Bottle Trick and Carter’s The Bloody Chamber read as unique re-imaginings of the Blue Beard legend, which I think would make for a fascinating study of the flexibility of adaptation and the literary effects of (dis) placement of folktales within different cultural contexts.
Both adaptation and affect theory would feature heavily in that analysis. Neither of these epistemologies is my specialty. As such, I’m half-tempted to give it a shot just for the brain stretch. We’ll see if that comes to pass.
The most striking element of Skin Folk, for me at least, is Hopkinson’s way of writing embodiment into narratives that have can be disembodying. This fleshiness was refreshing for me — as someone who tends to become a bit of a brain in a jar if left to my own devices. The delicate attention paid to sensuality in these narratives heightened the sharpness of each twist and turn, which rendered the denouement of each tale that much more poignant.
This entry is tad ramble-y, and I do apologize for that. I have been preoccupied with the more fragile details of life, balancing them with some very exciting professional developments that I look forward to sharing once they begin to take shape. This post serves as both an initial piece on a collection that deserves far, far more attention, and a way to stretch my hands and get back into the habit of writing regularly.
And with that, dear reader, I thank you for your attention. I hope to hold it again in future once I have fully digested (and probably re-read) this collection and am ready to apply a more critical eye to it.
et pour l’instant, adieu.
