Cold Skin by Steven Herrick

[bj neary]

Cold Skin is a novel in verse that takes place after World War II in a mining town in Barruga, Australia. The story is told from many different characters' points of view who are listed at the beginning of the novel and their name is repeated when they tell their side of the story. Most of the men in Barruga have come back from the war, Albert Holden drove a truck but did not fight during the war. Mayor Paley never went to war and Jack O'Connor saw too much fighting. Albert's sons, Eddie and Larry, couldn't be more different. Eddie is ridiculed by his teacher in school and wants to work in the mines. His father refused to go back down in the mines (won't entertain Eddie working in the mines) and now does manual labor on someone else's farm. Larry Holden loves learning, and sees it as a way out of town. Both Father and son, Larry, enjoy drinking too much, as do many of the other men in town on Friday evenings after a tough week. It is on one of these Friday nights, that a young sixteen-year-old girl is missing and later found dead. Every man in Barruga is suspect and the spare verse by Herrick, paints a picture of revenge, cowardice, and twisted justice while also probing the friendship of Eddie and Sallie as it slowly becomes love.