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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Under the Skin by Max Lanski is an account of a friendship that leaves Lanski questioning whether the meaning he gives to a connection matches the relationship itself. A Russian architect living in Sweden, Lanski grows close to Alma, a married Brazilian architect whose placement brings them into the same city after months of contact. Their time together creates an intimacy Lanski cannot comfortably define. Once distance returns, each message seems significant, and every silence invites interpretation. Lanski responds like the engineer he is, treating uncertainty as something that might yield to analysis. Conversations with friend Dan sit beside exchanges with artificial intelligence, giving him a voice through which to test his assumptions about Alma. As those interpretations accumulate, Lanski must consider how much of what he believes belongs to Alma and how much comes from himself.
Max Lanski’s Under the Skin is a fantastic read, and Lanski has a gift for making his own thinking as interesting as the relationships he examines. The writing is candid and conversational, and I love how his architectural mindset turns ordinary moments into evidence. The London trip is a perfect example, as railway disruption has Lanski and Alma running circles around the City before racing back to Stansted, which he later reads as a model for their relationship. I also loved the travel writing once his thinking shifts. In Kyoto, Lanski sits in the rain in a rock garden and notices he no longer reaches for his phone to show Alma what he sees. Well written and wonderfully self-aware, readers who enjoy autobiographical writing about modern relationships will adore Under the Skin.
