A Horror in Five Skins

I want to talk about a face. Specifically, I want to talk about the face you see when you look in the mirror and the face other people see when they look at you, and whether those two faces have ever been the same face, and what happens to a person who discovers, at the age of five, that the answer is no, and that the distance between the two can be closed by reaching out and copying someone else's bone structure onto your own skull. That is the premise of my new novel, The Borrowed Saint: A Horror in Five Skins. A boy named Asa Greer stands in a bathroom in Decker, Ohio, and watches his reflection change. His cheekbones soften. His jaw loses its angles. The space between his eyes widens. For three seconds, maybe four, he is looking at the face of the boy next door on his own head. Then it collapses. His own features rush back. And the bathroom is loud again.

You can listen to A Horror in Five Skins online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

A Horror in Five Skins is an episode from David Boles: Human Meme by David Boles.

This episode is 09:46 long.

This episode was published on Mar 27, 2026.

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