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Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks
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Lost Memory of Skin (edition 2012)

by Russell Banks

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7874327,946 (3.63)57
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The acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone returns with a provocative new novel that illuminates the shadowed edges of contemporary American culture with startling and unforgettable results

Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks's uncompromising and 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.

Long one of our most acute and insightful novelists, Russell Banks often examines the indistinct boundaries between our intentions and actions. A mature and masterful work of contemporary fiction from one of our most accomplished storytellers, Lost Memory of Skin unfolds in language both powerful and beautifully lyrical, show-casing Banks at his most compelling, his reckless sense of humor and intense empathy at full bore.

The perfect convergence of writer and subject, Lost Memory of Skin probes the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassionâ??a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.… (more)

Member:shildreth
Title:Lost Memory of Skin
Authors:Russell Banks
Info:Ecco (2012), Edition: Reprint, Paperback, 432 pages
Collections:To read
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Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

  1. 00
    The Terrible Privacy of Maxwell Sim by Jonathan Coe (Babou_wk)
    Babou_wk: La présence de l'écrivain lui-même à l'intérieur du roman.
  2. 00
    Una by Benedict Andrews (mmuhr222)
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» See also 57 mentions

English (42)  French (1)  All languages (43)
Showing 1-5 of 42 (next | show all)
The central character in Lost Memory of Skin, referred to only as the Kid, is a convicted sex offender. Due to exclusion laws, the Kid is forced to live in a tent city under a freeway, as the only place in the County far enough from where children gather. When the police raid the tents and expel the offenders residing there, he is left with nowhere to go.

The Kid meets the Professor, a vast man of genius intellect who has his own secrets to hide. He asks the Kid for help in some research he is doing on homeless sex offenders. The Kid reluctantly goes along, and gradually starts to warily form a bond with his mysterious benefactor.

Banks' book holds up to the light the vindictive way that society treats some of its marginalised, somehow turning ostensible predators into victims in the process of implementing insane social policies based on little more than fear and retribution. Still he does not quite pull this off; in the end the backstory of the Professor is too fanciful and weak, and lets down what could have been an interesting conclusion. ( )
  gjky | Apr 9, 2023 |
Nothing fucking happens in this. It's split into multiple parts, all of which have at least a dozen chapters. Of all these chapters in each part, the first six could be cut and the book would lose nothing except the constant flood of words. The sentences lack punctuation until the fifth chapter of part one and I was annoyed. I had no idea where the book was going, so I was curious to finish. Bad idea. This book is 100% narrative passages with blocks of italicized dialogue. The narrative passages are just so full of words, and are often even wordy lists of things (what the Professor eats, the Kid's ideas on women, and others), and it adds absolutely nothing. The wordy passages dragged down the few attempts at action scenes, too. The ending was just stupid. ( )
  iszevthere | Jul 26, 2022 |
The Kid is a twenty-one year old virgin. He doesn't know anything about his father. His mother, who loves him, is too wrapped up in her own life and series of boyfriends to pay much attention to him. He becomes addicted to online porn, falls into a trap, is arrested and becomes a convicted sex offender. Upon his release from prison, he must wear an ankle monitoring device for ten years and cannot live within 2500 feet of a school, playground or place children may cluster. He also can't leave the county. So, that means living in an airport hangar, a swamp or under a bridge near the highway. He will be on the Sex Offenders Registry for life.

In this book, Russell Banks forces us to look at the way we treat sex offenders, without expecting us to sympathize with them. He shows that ongoing restrictions can impair an offender's ability to rehabilitate by curtailing housing and employment opportunities. He shows that an ex-politician convicted of having sex with children is treated the same was as a young man trying to have consensual sex with a teenaged girl seven years his junior.

In the novel, the Kid is befriended by the Professor -- a genius who is studying the link between homelessness and sex offenders. But what is the Professor really after? It seems he may have motives beyond his stated one. He and the Kid become more and more involved in each other's lives. And, through the character of the Professor, we start to question what is true about not only him, but about human nature.

Excellent writing and deep, complex character development. I loved this one. ( )
  LynnB | Nov 10, 2021 |
This book is very well-written. I was surprised while reading to have empathy for the main character, yet I did. ( )
  Melwilk | Mar 19, 2020 |
Just couldn't get interested in this book and it's subject matter.
  motherraccoon | Jan 8, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 42 (next | show all)
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Epigraph
Now I am ready to tell how bodies changed into different bodies. -- Metamorphoses
Dedication
To C.T. And in memory, to F.T.B. (1914-2010)
First words
It isn't like the kid is locally famous for doing a good or a bad thing and even if people knew his real name it wouldn't change how they treat him unless they looked it up online which is not something he wants to encourage.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Fiction. Literature. HTML:

The acclaimed author of The Sweet Hereafter and Rule of the Bone returns with a provocative new novel that illuminates the shadowed edges of contemporary American culture with startling and unforgettable results

Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, the young man at the center of Russell Banks's uncompromising and 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.

Long one of our most acute and insightful novelists, Russell Banks often examines the indistinct boundaries between our intentions and actions. A mature and masterful work of contemporary fiction from one of our most accomplished storytellers, Lost Memory of Skin unfolds in language both powerful and beautifully lyrical, show-casing Banks at his most compelling, his reckless sense of humor and intense empathy at full bore.

The perfect convergence of writer and subject, Lost Memory of Skin probes the zeitgeist of a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassionâ??a society where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.

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