Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Lost Memory of Skin  By  cover art

Lost Memory of Skin

By: Russell Banks
Narrated by: Scott Shepherd
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $28.79

Buy for $28.79

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

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.

©2011 Russell Banks (P)2011 HarperCollinsPublishers

What listeners say about Lost Memory of Skin

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    88
  • 4 Stars
    97
  • 3 Stars
    39
  • 2 Stars
    12
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    113
  • 4 Stars
    56
  • 3 Stars
    20
  • 2 Stars
    7
  • 1 Stars
    4
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    67
  • 4 Stars
    78
  • 3 Stars
    37
  • 2 Stars
    14
  • 1 Stars
    6

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Amazing "Must Read" Tale of (In)Justice in America

There will come a time when we look back at the sex registry as a shameful period in American history similar to the Salem Witch Trials and the Puritanism of the 'Scarlet Letter.'
I have been waiting for someone to write this book and Russell Banks has done it.

It is the story of the 21st century's Huck Finn - tortured by a system he can't understand and sentenced to a lifetime of excommunication from society. The really terrific thing about this book is that it is not didactic or preachy. It is lyrical and funny and a wonderful yarn.

Everyone who has had anything to do with someone on a sex registry will want to read this. This includes perpetrators and victims. If you haven't and you want to know what it is like, read this book. If you just want to hear a great story read this book!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Relevant Insightful Entertaining

Russell Banks has outdone himself and given a much needed glimpse into a subculture in Lost Memory of Skin. A rambling story, Lost Memory considers guilt, criminality, justice, and character in a way that draws the reader in immediately. Along the way the reader learns about hardship, despair and resilience in a way not often seen. Other reviewers have aptly covered the outlines of the story. Just let me say that this is one book that will follow you for weeks after you have finished it. If you have never read Russell Banks, this one will make you a believer. The reading of Scott Shepherd is excellent.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Too wordy....rambled on and on....

The description of this book sparked my interest. I wanted to like it, really I did!! I found "The Kid" and "The Professor" pathetic, sad and boring. Parts of the story are intriguing, then, unfortunately, the author goes off on a tangent. I agree with the previous reviewers, the way in which our justice system handles sex offenders is awful, dehumanizing, and unfair. I just didn't like this story. Scott Shepherd did an amazing job, as usual!!!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Not for those who like Ghrisham or Patterson.

Where does Lost Memory of Skin rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Between the writing, theme, narration and provocation this is a top 10 of my over 500 audiobooks.

What did you like best about this story?

A subtle and sublime examination of an area of life not examined, but simply accepted by most. Like the Tortilla Curtain, it forces you to reconsider and examine preconceptions and assumptions. Jennifer Egan comes to mind.

Have you listened to any of Scott Shepherd’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

If you think that Scott Brick is the best out there, move on. This is a far more subtle and engaging performance than Bricks over emoting.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

The professor?

What disappointed you about Lost Memory of Skin?

This character of a Mensa who introduces himself as:

Has Lost Memory of Skin turned you off from other books in this genre?

Yes

Who would you have cast as narrator instead of Scott Shepherd?

Nothing could have saved some of the dialogue, but Scott's interpretation of

What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?

Surprise, then disappointment followed by boredom.

Any additional comments?

My first and Last Russel Banks. Life is too short.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So good!

If it's true that reading increases one's empathy, then it's because of authors who write books like this. I read 'The Darling' years ago and I still think about it. It's been a few months now since I read 'Lost Memory of Skin,' and I'm still thinking about this one as well. The characters Russell Banks creates win me over with their authenticity, and what Banks shares about them helps me to understand who they are and why they became that way. He not only writes a story that engages, he writes one that challenges what we think we know. I can't think of a better way to spend my free time. Also, the narrator is fantastic!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good Story, just different from the summary

I expected to see the problems a young man would have living with the stigma of being a sex offender. This is a big part of the story, but definitely not the story. I liked the book a lot, and I liked the story a lot, I just wish the summary included more about what it is actually about. It is about a relationship with people on the edge; having no alternatives. Then there is the mystery of the professor and the kid, that is the part that I continue to think about. To me taking a question away from a book and bringing it into my own thoughts after the story is over makes the book a success.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This is a great read

The story line follows characters on the fringe of American life; the outcasts. Some of these people deserve to be where they are and some, not so much. It's an interesting dilemma in our society that we tend to shelve and ignore. This book is very well written, read and has much to ponder.

This book is not "heavy" or difficult to read in spite of its topic.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

I loved this book!!!

On the surface this seems like a simple story of a young sex offender. Yes, it's interesting to hear how this kind of a conviction changes the lives of those convicted, forever. And we can learn to sympathize with those few who are punished for uncontrollable urges that border on mental illness, or who are simply looking for love in all the really wrong places. But this book is about so much more. I am grateful to Russell Banks for taking the most vilified people on the planet and writing a story of redemption through their eyes. By doing this he successfully illustrates what is, I think, almost a biblical parable. In fact there are many references to the Garden of Eden, the mistaken loss of innocence, the prodigal son, and finally an upside down, ironic sort of beautiful redemption. I loved this book, loved the narration, the writing. Well worth it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Okay but nothing extraordinary

Just finished listening to this book, I have no major criticisms about the audiobook, just wasn't too impressed with the story. I found it rather dull and depressing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful