Lost Memory of Skin - Russell Banks

Written by Russell Banks
Read by Scott Shepherd
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 32 Kbps

General Information
===================
Title: Lost Memory of Skin
Author: Russell Banks
Reader: Scott Shepherd
Audiobook Copyright: 2011-09-27
Publisher: HarperAudio
Duration: 14 hrs 30 mins
ISBN: 9780062087522
Subjects: Fiction

File Information
===================
Media Format: AAC
Total Files: 1
Total Size: 192 MB
Bitrate: 32 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz
Channels: Stereo

Book Description
===================
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 compassion-a society
where isolating the offender has perhaps created a new kind of victim.