The Personal Made Way Too Public

by Tony Fonseca

05/14/2007

Barnhart, Jeff. Skin. Bloomington, IN: Authorhouse, 2006.154 p.

In his “about the author” note in the back matter of his novella Skin, Jeff Barnhart writes “I originally began writing as a result of a bad marriage. I do not recommend this method of getting started for an aspiring author.” It is unfortunate for Barnhart that he apparently did not heed his own advice when penning this novella, or in the latter stages of its publication when editing. What starts out as a potentially compelling story about a mysterious looking insect, an inexplicable blue light in one man’s back yard, and surreal dreams in a hospital bed degenerates into a hackneyed effort to exorcise feelings of love and hate for an individual one can assume became the author’s ex-wife in time. Barnhart does not make the novice mistake of explaining everything supernatural with the ubiquitous “it was all just a dream.” However, he does not fall too far short of such authorial silliness. His decision to end this novella via an all-too-natural device such as visions caused by poisoning and the deus-ex-machina last second appearance by a police detective completely undercut any effect Skin had gone for it, rendering it mundane and vitriolic.

Barnhart’s failure to understand the potential of his story is particularly aggravating because his narrator, Dan, is a fairly likable guy, and Barnhart’s prose style is fun for the casual reader. Dan O’Reilly, the protagonist of Skin, is first introduced as a man rushing himself to the hospital with abdominal cramps. The scene where he experiences the reason that the waiting room is called the waiting room is well-written, informed by O’Reilly’s sarcasm—aimed at the ridiculous practices of hospitals and clinics, such as being asked the same questions by the admitting nurse, the examining nurse, and the doctor. All of us have been treated as badly in most medical clinics, and can relate to the experience, and most readers will find themselves cheering on Dan O’Reilly as he makes snide comment after snide comment in response to inane questions and poor bedside manner. Barnhart then introduces the two central themes of Skin, O’Reilly’s need to save his marriage and the supernatural insect infestation that eventually does get under his skin.

It is in his treatment of the former theme where Barnhart seems to lose all control of his own story. I do not know what type of bad marriage relationship this writer was living through at the time of his authorship, but whatever his wife at the time was doing must have gotten under his skin in the way only an exotic Brazilian beetle egg can (yes, that is a plot giveaway). The fictional wife of Skin, Kim, is shrewish, prone to going off the handle, a woman who misunderstands or misinterprets every situation and intention of the narrator, and is quick to use name calling as a mechanism of interpersonal battle. Barnhart has her belittle O’Reilly constantly, calling the narrator Danny Boy, instead of Dan or Daniel. It is a wonder that the print does not run off the page, covered with as much authorial venom as is the case. There is even a scene where O’Reilly, recovering in a hospital bed, makes it a point to look up his doctor’s blouse to get a good view of her cleavage. Amazingly, when the wife, Kim, is angered by this, Barnhart steers the reader’s sympathy towards not her but the husband, portraying her frustration with his actions as being yet another overreaction by the “bitch.” One wonders why the author just doesn’t go all out and have Kim catch Dan at a strip club—and then portray her as being outside of her rights for complaining.

But the problem is that this is not the only scene where the wife is demonized and the husband is made to come off smelling like a rose. The novella is filled with scenes of Kim’s belittling Dan, calling him names, pointing out his flaws, and verbally abusing him. And of course, in each and every scene, Dan is totally innocent, always misunderstood. He always tries so hard to save the marriage, even given the abuse he takes. And if this isn’t unbelievable enough, Barnhart writes a gratuitous sex scene between O’Reilly and Dr. Cleavage, one which readers may find themselves feeling uncomfortable reading, because it does not take long before they will start to suspect they are reading an authorial masturbation fantasy, rather than a pivotal or even important scene in a novella. This scene is one of those “it was only a dream” scenes, but by that time the damage is done.

Skin is one of the best examples I have ever seen of an author’s shooting himself in the foot. Even though Barnhart seems aware of the dangers of letting his emotional issues dictate the story, he seems equally unable to prevent it from happening. Granted, writing is often touted as an excellent method of exorcising one’s private demons, of scraping away at the skin, getting underneath it, and removing whatever emotional cancers have taken root. This practice, albeit helpful to the individual, is only rarely worthy of literature; it is, in fact, best left to personal journal entries.

One should never read a short story, novella, or novel and come away thinking “sounds like a personal problem to me.” Unfortunately, the skin of Barnhart’s story is much too transparent. While tales of one’s bitchy wife may be appropriate fodder in the pool hall among friends or in a diary meant only for the eyes of the writer, they do little to help make a horror novel better. In this case, they render it unreadable.