Out of My Skin

Summer 1990. Montreal simmers in the heat of the sun and the Oka standoff. Adrift in the tide of restlessness and uncertainty, Daphne Baird arrives in the city from Toronto, leaving boyfriend, job and family behind. By day, she loses herself in the dull roar of a copy shop. By night, she haunts neighbourhood streets, collecting fragments of other peoples' histories. Through it all, she tries to trace her birth mother. A journey of discovery, Out of My Skin is a tale of voyeurism, crisis, race and family secrets.

The search for her biological parents leads Daphne Eyre to her grandfather''s diaries written in 1960s British Guiana. A powerful tale of crisis, race and family secrets. Out Of My Skin explores what binds us to places and people and in its layering of contemporary evetns and personal histories subtly explores the effects and aftershocks of colonialism in the New World.  

Tessa McWatt was born in Georgetown, Guyana, and grew up in Toronto. She currently lives in London, England, where she is working as a producer and scriptwriter, as well as completing a third novel and a young adult novella.