The Lost Memory of Skin
Ratings11
Average rating3.5
Suspended in a strangely modern day version of limbo, the young man at the center of this morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders. Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid, despite his crime, is in many ways an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices he himself struggles to comprehend. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and recidivism among convicted sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative partnership, the Kid remaining wary of the Professor's motives even as he accepts the counsel and financial assistance of the older man. When the camp beneath the causeway is raided by the police, and later, when a hurricane all but destroys the settlement, the Professor tries to help the Kid in practical matters while trying to teach his young charge new ways of looking at, and understanding, what he has done. But when the Professor's past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men's relationship shifts. Suddenly, the Kid must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision.
Tags
Reviews
Popular Reviews
Reviews with the most likes.
As difficult as it is to have sympathy for this novel's main character—the Kid is a porn addict and convicted sex offender—it isn't at all difficult to become thoroughly caught up in the memorable story that revolves around him. After all, there's talk of pirates and buried treasure, there's a hurricane, there's a secret agent (or double agent), and there's an adventure in a Florida swamp. What's not to like? Along the way, there's a discourse on knowledge and truth, on believing and knowing, and on the reinvention of self.
See the full review at Perpetual Folly.
I love [a:Russell Banks 15128 Russell Banks http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1275844031p2/15128.jpg]. He's got this way fo writing that is deep and thought provoking while also being entertaining and relatively easy to read. It's like brain candy for smart people. Light reading, but not.This book was a joy to read for the first 4/5ths of it. Great character development, a good plot that moves along at the right pace but is moved in a unique manner. EG: it's not just this happens, then that happens and then this happens..... the story is told through some jumps in time, from different perspectives and characters do grow and change, appropriately.All that said, the last 1/5th of the book it suddenly became this weird mystery that comes out of nowhere. Although it's point as a writerly device makes sense (I don't want to give it away so I won't explain that much more), the actual writing in this section fell flat for me, especially after the preceding 375 pages.Still, I enjoyed this book and do recommend it.
The best thing about this book is how deftly Banks changes the focus of the novel. It goes from being about the Professor trying to investigate the Kid (a sex offender who lives under a causeway) to being about the Kid trying to learn more about the Professor. The shift is so subtle that it's barely noticeable. It's a testament to Banks' skill as a writer that he can so easily change the direction of a novel when he's already 200-300 pages into the story.
