Book: Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

The story both interesting and compelling as it portrays a community of homeless sex offenders living under a causeway on the coast of Florida. The main character is a young man by the name of Kid. He is befriended by a gentleman who tells Kid he is a professor and who wants to interview him. The professor is interested in the sociology of the homeless and sex offenders or so he tells Kid, who, of course is skeptical. But the Professor persists and helps Kid to organize the ragtag community for the benefit of all of them. But, unfortunately, there is a hurricane.

The novel is pretty much of a piece with no loose ends, with a beginning and ending and even if the Professor's story is a bit murky, Kid's makes more sense. He is a young man convicted of a sex offense, and the story explains how Kid becomes someone wearing an electronic ankle monitor (that he is responsible for keeping charged) and how he ends up with his pet iguana living in this very marginal community. Just a detail like having to charge his monitor is something I would never have thought about or details about dumpster diving or Kid's total acceptance of his emotionally impoverished childhood, one so lacking in nurture. There are novels (and this is one) that can elicit complex feelings about subjects which society mostly ignores unless directly involved, subjects like sex offenders and the daily struggles of homeless people. For instance, Kid cannot live within 2500 feet of any place children gather and in a large city, that is just about nowhere. Thus the congregation beneath the bridge and causeway.

And then there is the Professor, a complicated man with a mysterious and fluid history. What is his real interest here? Who exactly is he?

"The Professor takes hold of the backpack again. This time the Kid doesn't resist. He's remembers that he's an object, a thing, not a human being with a will and a goal, and that he's only capable of reacting not acting. The Professor's the human being here, not the Kid. So he opens the passenger door of the van and gets in."

Naturally a tale set in Florida also has swamps, barrier islands, the ocean, tropical weather, the Everglades and the bustle of development.

Michael Ondaatje says of Russell Banks: "I trust his portrait of America more than any other--the burden of it, the need for it, the hell of it."