Under the Skin (novel)

Under the Skin (2000) is a novel by Michel Faber. It is set in northern Scotland.

Plot

The main protagonist is Isserley, an extra-terrestrial, sent to Earth by a rich corporation on her planet to pick up unwary hitchhikers. She drugs them and delivers them to her compatriots who mutilate and fatten her victims so that they can be turned into meat—human flesh is a delicacy on the aliens' barren homeworld.

Isserley later meets Amlis Vess, the "Elite" son of her boss, who changes her attitudes to the hitchhikers and then leaves, breaking her heart. She finally flees her job and commits suicide.

The novel is darkly satirical. It touches on political themes around big business, intensive farming, and environmental decay; and reflects on more personal questions of sexual identity, humanity, snobbery, and mercy.