Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

 

Something about the cover copy here grabbed me when I was in the library, and then over the past week and change as I'd sift through the books I'd checked out I'd wonder if I'd erred. I, uh, didn't really err: This is a really good novel, if one not in my usual range, genre-wise. It's probably a bit "literary"--there's at least some blurring toward the end of the novel about what has actually happened away from the narrative spotlight, there are hints from before, in the POV of a character who dies, that roughly nothing he says about himself is what most people would think of as literally true, though he might be less dishonest than that; and there are knock-on effects that make what happened seem as though it might matter, then it turns out not to. The noel has a lot to say, both in text and subtext, about how the US treats "sexual offenders," especially about how there is context and nuance to many of their situations and the system/s they're caught up in don't care at all about any of it; turns out, I mostly agree with those things; there's not really a sense of authorial axe-grinding, though, the characters have reason enough to care. It's a pretty grim novel, any hope is vague and distant, though its seeds are planted.