Mysterious Skin Paperback – May 10, 2005

Ever since stumbling upon this movie, I was desperate to read the book. It's a very personal tale, and an absolute tear jerker. Well worth it

*Spoilers*In this touching story, Scott Heim proves his worth as an outstanding storyteller.The reason that this book gets five stars from me is because the author does a lot that's relatively unique in this story. While the prose isn't Fitzgerald, it definitely has its moments. However, the strength of the book lies in the plot. The author finds a novel, creative way to address an old idea without it becoming kitsch. In and of itself, that's a pretty big accomplishment. The story also has the correct pace, length, and the character development has a lot of strengths - particularly in the character of Brian.My personal opinion is that, of most people I have read on amazon criticizing this book, many of them likely don't understand the scope of the story or just saw the movie and believe it entitles them to make claims about the book. They either think Heim is trying to make an overall statement challenging the way contemporary society views the nature of child molestation (way beyond the scope of the book) or that the author is painting a two-dimensional, reductionist view of the characters he creates in order to to prove some foregone point (which is way below the scope of the book). Instead, the author winds up rearing two very complex characters who deal with a similar experience of childhood sexual contact in two totally opposite ways. Neal externalizes the experience and looks back on it as a character developing, novel happening (saying that he didn't believe his baseball coach took away his childhood or something ridiculous like that). On the other hand, Brian internalizes the experience, isolating himself from sexual expression and interpreting the event as traumatizing. Nobody can tell either character that their interpretation of events is wrong, and this takes an otherwise creative story of small town America's eccentricities to a whole other level. On a side note, those who feel that the character of Brian is unrealistic, his loss of memory and UFO fantasies are practically textbook. It should also be said that the title is pretty imaginative as it doesn't come directly from the text anywhere.Although the book deserves five stars in my opinion, I do have one complaint about the story. Mainly, I think some of the abuse is over the top. The idea of two kids in baseball uniforms sticking their fist in somebody's ass is more absurd than traumatic or shocking to me. While the author chooses the perfect amount of detail when it comes to describing these disturbing scenes (not too much, not too little), I think the story would have been better off without that element. I believe there could have been a way where Brian could have recollected information that wasn't so off the wall. I'm sure it happens and is in some regard true to life but, as Mark Twain said, the difference between fiction and real life is that fiction should be believable.To end on a positive note, I wanted to share that a lot of psychologists actually recommend the book and movie to help young people come to terms with their own abuse. So whether or not the author was trying to, he wound up creating something that has incidentally helped a lot of people.

In October, the discussion group at the LGBT Center in NYC had a terrific group of very interested and thoughtful readers to discuss this novel. Wow, has this book held up. Originally published in 1996 and recently re-published, we all found it a powerful and moving first novel, with a few minor problems. --SPOILERS FOLLOW--Without a doubt, Neil is the best-drawn character (narrating 5 chapters, including the final resolving chapter). A rough-around-the-edges hustler, he's a smooth operator who is able to seduce and reject almost everyone, unable to make a connection. As with so many victims of childhood abuse, he has few boundaries (like his mom?) so he drinks to much, uses drugs, and has inappropriate sex.Compared to Neil, Brian is boring. He's the major voice of the novel (narrating 7 chapters, including the opening chapter to set the tone), but is stunted emotionally and sexually (probably asexual, in today's parlance). His bully-father leaves the family, which doesn't help. His mother is perhaps too protective and seems to know that something is wrong but doesn't know how to respond. (She keeps practicing with her prison guard-issued handgun, but it's a red herring in the novel.)A few minor characters round out the novel. Wendy (1 chapter) is Neill's best friend but like most of the women in the novel, is a poorly drawn and rather weak character. Brian's sister Deborah (2 chapters) is especially mis-used in the novel never having much motivation to do anything. Avalyn (not narrating a chapter), also a predator in many ways, clearly has psychological problems and was probably abused herself (perhaps by her creepy, staring father, with whom she's inordinately close?).Eric (3 chapters) is the goth queer from California who wound up in Kansas after his parents' death. He's universally loved and serves as a stabilizing influence to bring Neil and Brian together to uncover what really happened. He's a bit of a stereotype but a necessary plot point. Too bad he's not more interesting. There's also a character, Chris, who's mentioned but disappears when Eric appears.And then there's Coach, who disappears. He doesn't narrate a chapter and remains a disturbing (no, really, DISTURBING) mystery.Some of the readers thought that the voices weren't different enough between the different narrators/story-tellers. There are differences but they're subtle.Nothing really happens in the novel. Everything happened 10 years ago and it's all a mystery that's slowly uncovered. Some that thought Brian's unreliable narrator allows the novel to spend too much time on the UFO-alien abduction theme and not enough on the current situation and psychology of the main characters. The fact that Neil is gay and Brian is straight results in the major disparity in the way the two characters respond to their shared childhood abuse, but it would be good to explore and explain how this affects the big jigsaw puzzle.The final chapters were closely read and discussed. The book derives much of it's power from these chapters. Neil and Brian break into Coach's house where their childhood abuse originally took place. They're stuck there and can't escape. Neil even uses a toy truck (rather than a brick) to break into the house and literally drags Brian into the house with him in a bizarre re-creation of the original horrible events. The final images show the real world intruding into their frozen world.Heim is a great writer with wonderful use of language. His use of verbs is especially vivid. (I enjoyed the pink polo shirt described as "pastel pterodactyl" before the story turns especially violent.)Which brings us to the violence that motivates so much of the novel. Several readers pointed out that "Mysterious Skin" is a period piece, written in 1995 and ending in 1991. Some of the descriptions seem to be presented for their shock value; this is the time of Dennis Cooper's emergence, Bret Easton Ellis's 1991 "American Psycho," and Genet was on everyone's reading list. The novel presents a lot of extreme behavior for the sake of extreme behavior. But maybe it's not so extreme with the black shadow of AIDS covering much of the novel. It's hard to describe how dark and hopeless this period was.Don't let these final comments discourage you from reading it: it's not just a good period piece. It's a great piece of gay fiction with an equally good movie directed by Gregg Araki.