Out of My Skin

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Daphne Baird impulsively leaves behind her boyfriend, her family, her whole life, for a new start in Montreal. Losing herself in the rhythmic roar of a copy shop by day, and haunting the sweltering, vibrant streets of the city by night, she collects fragments of histories and reconstructs other peoples’ lives.

Her long-postponed search for her biological parents leads her to the diaries of her grandfather, opening a window on 1960 British Guiana. As Daphne descends into the paranoid yet lucid world of Gerald Eyre — which reveals more than Daphne could ever expect — she cannot avoid the tensions swirling around the city or her own desire for family and connection.

Out of My Skin explores the things that bind us to places and people. It is a powerful tale of voyeurism, crisis, race, and family secrets that in its layering of contemporary events and personal histories subtly explores the effects and aftershocks of colonialism in the New World.

AUTHOR

Tessa McWatt

Tessa McWatt was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in Toronto. She currently lives in London, England, where she is working as a producer and scriptwriter.

Reviews

“McWatt’s style is direct and pointed. Her language is fresh and reads with an uncommon vibrancy … A rich, complex, and evocative first novel, Out of My Skin is precisely researched and sensitively written.”
“‘What are you anyway, Daphne?’ It is the question that haunts almost every page of this ambitious, moving and many-layerd first novel… McWatt’s narrative voice is steady, formally unadorned, yet rich in imagery.”