Under the Skin

Australian writer Michel Faber, now well ensconced in Scotland, has written a wildly imaginative, scorching, bizarre, and insidious first novel that is generating critical praise and word-of-mouth buzz. In Under the Skin, Faber reverses many roles: animals are humans; humans become animals; and hitchhikers are victims rather than dangerous passengers.

Isserley, the book's heroine, has…