Book Review: The Skin Trade

Book Review: 'The Skin Trade', edited by Douglas E. Winter

4 / 5 Stars

‘The Skin Trade’ first was published in hardcover in 1988 as Night Visions 5; this Berkley Books paperback (330 pp) was published in March 1990.

My capsule summaries of the contents:

Steven King’s name on the cover of a horror book was a major marketing plus throughout the 1980s, so it’s no surprise that his entries were showcased in ‘The Skin Trade’.

‘The Reploids’ reads like a sci-fi episode from the old Twilight Zone TV show. It’s not particularly memorable.

‘Sneakers’, about a ghost who haunts a stall in the men’s room of a building housing a recording studio, is one of those King stories built around an idea that might have sounded good in theory, but turned out to be underwhelming in the execution. So there’s a ghost sitting on the toilet seat……….how scary is that ?

‘Dedication’ is about Martha Rosewall, a black woman who works as a maid in a high-class hotel; she finds herself in a strange kinship with the drunk, but talented, white novelist whose rooms she cleans.

This story is less a horror tale than an effort by King to demonstrate that, even though he was white, and raised in an environment almost exclusively occupied by white people, he recognized the inherent Nobility and Dignity of Black People and Their Struggle against Bigotry and Racism. The Magic Negro – a stock character in much of King’s fiction – is here represented by Mama Delorme, a Conjur Woman who operates out of her apartment in the ghetto (!).

Dan Simmons was a prominent practitioner of the genre of ‘quiet’ horror during the 80s. He has three contributions to 'The Skin Trade':

‘Metastasis’: after Louis Steig suffers a head injury, he is able to see extradimensional creatures that no one else can see. And when Louis discovers what these creatures are capable of doing, his sanity is endangered………this story’s offbeat premise and creepy overtones make it one of the better entries in the anthology.

‘Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell’: throughout the 80s mocking evangelical Christians was a favorite pastime for many writers. Here, Simmons targets a televangelist whose studio is invaded by a damned soul straight from Dante’s Inferno.

‘Vanni’ is too filled with righteous anger on Simmons’s part to be an effective satire. And it is  thoroughly eclipsed by David J. Schow’s markedly superior short story ‘Jerry’s Kids Meet Wormboy’, which came out just one year later.

‘Iverson’s Pits’: a Civil War ghost story set in Gettysburg during the 50th anniversary celebration held in 1913. This novelette relies heavily on atmosphere, but it’s done in a competent manner, and thus stands as another of the better entries in ‘The Skin Trade’.

In 1988 George R. R. Martin was perhaps better known as an executive producer of the TV show Beauty and the Beast, with Game of Thrones far, far in the future.

‘The Skin Trade’ is a novelette set in a decaying northeastern industrial town. Willie Flambeaux, a debt collector, asks stylish private eye Randi Wade to investigate the death of an acquaintance. Wade soon discovers that a clan of werewolves inhabits the city, and they don’t like strangers poking into their affairs………..

Part horror story and part detective story, ‘Skin’ has a fast-paced narrative, and plentiful helpings of  grue and gore. The denouement suffers from the failing too common to mystery tales: the machinations of Whodunit were so complicated I couldn’t understand them. That said, ‘Skin’ is much better than any of King’s entries.

The verdict ? The contributions from Simmons and Martin make ‘The Skin Trade’ one of the better horror anthologies from the 80s. Fans of Martin's works certainly will want to have a copy.