Mysterious Skin

(Mysterious Skin: A Novel by Scott Heim, Harper Collins, 1996.)

Sometimes you pick up a book out of curiosity. That was the case with Mysterious Skin: A Novel by Scott Heim. I guess I was intrigued by the cover, as well as by the blurbs on the book jacket. Not a new work, it has in fact been also made into a movie of the same name. Somehow I missed that too!

The book deals with a subject most of us would rather not confront: sexual abuse of children. At first you might not understand that as the story begins with one of the abused subjects blocking out the initial event and projecting it onto a totally different scenario. The main character, Brian, even as a young child knows he is different. So do his parents, but no one seems to recognize or deal with his "alien abduction" fantasies in realistic ways. By either ignoring them or going along with them, everybody pretends they will go away or be forgotten, instead of seeking any outside professional help.

As a complex subject, gay male sexual abuse is difficult to talk about. Does being abused as a child lead the subject into more abuse or confused state about his sexuality? Eerie, creepy, and at times pathetic and self-destructive, the story weaves its way along by portraying the various characters growth and denial. While Brian cannot understand what happened with his coach because he has blocked it out, the other victim, Neil seems to have accepted the abuse as part of his growing up process.

By taking you along on the quest to find the meaning of the "alien abduction", Heim draws you in, all the while knowing that the abduction did not take place, but something else sinister did.