Out of My Skin

Book excerpt: 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.