The Skinning Tree centres on the nine-year-old Sabby, who lives in a Calcutta family where sophisticated British habits such as bridge and dinner parties co-exist with Indian values and nationalism. When he is sent to a boarding school in northern India, he witnesses a strict regime in which the schoolboys are beaten and brutalized by the teachers.
But when his relationship with a teacher twice his age threatens to scupper his schooling, his home life, and his place in the band, events take an unexpected turn for everyone .
