Lost Memory of Skin by Russell Banks

Previously published in the Herald magazine. 

American writer Russell Banks’ latest novel Lost Memory of Skin is a realist look at many things – probably a few too many for one novel. But then this is a large book, with a heavy, fairly expansive narrative even though it technically only follows the story of two characters. Banks was moved to tell the story of homeless sex offenders living under a bridge by a series of newspaper articles about the topic, and while that part of the book is aptly chilling and depressing, the spin offs from the main narrative don’t add to the main premise.

Banks’ protagonist the Kid is barely an adult. He’s spent his teenage years locked in his bedroom obsessed with internet pornography, mostly ignored by his mother and her string of boyfriends and more interested in his 6 foot pet iguana’s care than in school.  He’s your classic ‘loser’: his already miserable life after being dishonorably discharged from the army for distributing pornography is made worse by an incredibly foolish act that lands him in the company of serious criminal sex offenders. The Kid lives in a strange sort of purgatory, not able to be a part of society and yet not allowed to fall off the grid, thanks to an electronic ankle bracelet that tracks his movements. He lives under a bridge in a ramshackle makeshift camp set up by random sex offenders who have nowhere else to go. They are not allowed in areas where children may collect and in a densely populated city, there is very little living space available to them. These are a strange collection of men; as Banks pointed out in a recent interview, ‘The trouble with the law is that it lumps everyone together: serial rapists, pedophiles, guys convicted of indecent exposure because they got caught urinating outside, some 18-year-old boy who has oral sex with a 15-year-old’.  Are they each as bad as the other? Do they all deserve the same treatment? These are all questions Banks asks in Lost Memory, but unfortunately there’s much too much else going on to devote any real attention to the question of what to do with homeless criminals within the American justice system.

In a fairly ubiquitous play of stereotypes/archetypes, the Kid meets the Professor, a man his physical and intellectual opposite, who wants to interview the Kid for an academic study on homeless criminals. The Professor is a strange man, monolithic in mind and stature, hiding secrets of his own but wanting to help the little group under the causeway to set up an organized camp and form a supportive community. He does not understand why the recidivism rate for sex offenders is so low, but he is certain that he can help rehabilitate the Kid. Neither of the lead characters are known by their names– they are repeatedly only ever called the Kid and the Professor. Are they stereotypes or archetypes? Does it matter? The narrative alternates between being comfortable with the lead characters, and being just odd. The entire story of what the Professor really wants from the Kid and why the Kid is as numb to his situation as he is gets quickly laid by the wayside when (out of nowhere) strangers arrive to ask questions about the Professor’s past. Suddenly, Lost Memory takes on the tone of an almost-conspiracy novel and the entire narrative arc that had so far followed the Kid simply falls apart and away.

Banks writes chillingly well of the Kid’s numbness and disenfranchisement with society, and just as well about the Professor’s strange addictions and professional beliefs, but even when the narrative picks up pace it is not able to follow through on its many promises. This is a good book by many standards but it could just as easily have been two better books.