Beck & Branch is proud to announce that author John Thorndike’s second Beck & Branch novel, The World Against Her Skin, has won the 2023 Eric Hoffer book award in the Micro Press category. The World Against Her Skin is a biographical novel in which much is remembered and much imagined. “I stay close to my mother’s story,” the author explains, “but to know the details I had to make them up.”
Reviews have been excellent:
“A rousing portrait of a brave, imperfect woman…. A stunning drama that delves into one woman’s bid for romantic satisfaction, even at the price of desolation.” —BookLife
“Incredibly compelling.” — The US Review of Books
“In the beautiful and achingly sad The World Against Her Skin, John Thorndike tells the story of his mother’s life, marriages, and addictions as a novel, real events mixed with imagined scenes and dialogue, to great—and devastating—effect. —IndieReader
“John Thorndike is scary. He writes about things other writers don’t even want to think about, and does so in an understated, elegant prose that creeps up on a body and makes a mind go places it would otherwise avoid. In The World Against Her Skin, he takes us into his mother’s addictions and sexuality, and treats those delicate subjects with insight and tenderness.” —Paul Kafka-Gibbons, author of Love. Enter and Dupont Circle
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