Mysterious Skin

By Scott Heim

Book Overview

"Wrenching . . . powerfully sensuous." -- New York Times

"As searing and unforgettable as an electric shock." --Kirkus Reviews
At the age of eight Brian Lackey is found bleeding under the
crawl space of his house, having endured something so traumatic that he cannot
remember an entire five-hour period of time.

During
the following years he slowly recalls details from that night, but these
fragments are not enough to explain what happened to him, and he begins to
believe that he may have been the victim of an alien encounter. Neil McCormick
is fully aware of the events from that summer of 1981. Wise beyond his years,
curious about his developing sexuality, Neil found what he perceived to be love
and guidance from his baseball coach. Now, ten years later, he is a teenage
hustler, unaware of the dangerous path his life is
taking. His recklessness is governed by idealized memories of his coach,
memories that unexpectedly change when Brian comes to Neil for help and,
ultimately, the truth.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B000GG4Z72
• ISBN13: 9780060841690
• Release Date: May 2005
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.56 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

A wonderful mess of a novel

I'm a big fan of imdb.com, and somehow I stumbled upon the page for an upcoming movie called Mysterious Skin. It interested me, so I thought I'd check out the book. Well. I finished it about twenty minutes ago, and I'm speechless. MYSTERIOUS SKIN has so many different characters, memorable quotes, and mind-boggling descriptions that I couldn't put it down. I'm not going to go into the full story, but the book is fantastic. Basically, it's about two boys that share a common bond, though neither of them know it in the beginning of the story. As the book advances, both characters (Brian Lackey and Neil McCormack) start to come to terms with an event that took place during the summer of 1981. There are a few parts of the book that are extremely graphic, some pages were hard to read without putting the book down and trying to clear my mind. My short description does NOT do the book justice. MYSTERIOUS SKIN is a fantastic novel, one that I wouldn't have chosen to read if I hadn't heard of the movie. This is definately the best book I've read in a loooong time. Highly recommended. Overall grade - A+

Powerful and Mesmerizing

Some books are made to affect the reader and make them feel emotions and make them disover worlds or situations they've never knew existed. Scott Heim's Mysterious Skin is a coming of age tale that holds nothing back. It's a fearless and unpretentious effort that will leave you breathless.The book's complex narrative takes us through the minds of various characters (the novel is told in first person, using different characters to tell different parts of the story). The story starts when Brian and Neil are young boys. Although they are on the same baseball team, they do not know each other. Something happens to them that will mark them forever. They both find different ways to deal with the event that left them mentally scarred. Many years later, Brian is certain that his blackouts and frequent nose bleeds can only be attributed to the fact that he was abducted by aliens. But as he grows older, the horrible truth slowly reveals itself to him and he quickly realizes that he needs to find Neil in order to put it all behind him. Neil, on his part, deals with his past in a very different way. Working as an escort, Neil doesn't always know what he wants. He is a very reluctant character in that he thinks he knows who he is what he wants when, in fact, he's a complete stranger to himself. The only way he can find to deal with everything life hands him is through his body and his sexuality.Offering very complex characters with even more complicated lives, Mysterious Skin is a powerful read that you won't be able to put down. The pain these characters feel just oozes off the page, affecting the reader in various ways. Just wait until Neil and Brian finally meet. Their confrontation is completely heartbreaking. It's almost impossible not to feel for these characters, almost impossible not to sympathize and empathize with them.Mysterious Skin was Scott Heim's first novel. I can't wait to discover more from this writer. Mysterious Skin really left an impression on me. Highly recommended.

Literature at its most beautiful

I don't know what made me want to read Scott Heim's "Mysterious Skin." I don't know if it was the strange cover art, or the promising synopsis, or the fact that I knew it involved homosexuality. But whatever it was that drew me in, I'm extremely grateful for it."Mysterious Skin" involves two seemingly unrelated plots: one about Brian, a boy who can't remember a five-hour period of his life; and the other about Neil, a boy who realized at a very young age his attraction to other men and took advantage of it when his Little League coach stole his sexual innocence. Brian grows up gradually remembering bits and pieces of the night he awoke in his crawlspace dirty and bleeding, and even begins to suspect that he was the victim of an alien abduction. Neil grows up to be a teenage hustler, cruising parks and gay bars for older men to scam, never able to push away his desire for more mature lovers after the incidents with his coach.The two stories flow separately through most of the book and come together toward the end. The combined tale that they tell is both heartbreakingly poignant and downright disturbing.The author walks on extremely dangerous ground throughout most of "Mysterious Skin." He deals with difficult and controversial material, especially in the beginning. The scenes he writes are graphic, and it would be very easy to toss the book aside out of disgust. But these scenes are necessary, and the author knows it. The graphically described scenes of sexual relations are necessary to make us feel for the characters and to understand them. What could easily be trashy becomes beautiful when you realize why it is there."Mysterious Skin" is an emotion-filled, poignant work. It had a sort of power over me to make me care for the characters it introduced, and still does have that power as I find myself thinking about Neil and Brian every so often... as if they were my friends. And that is a remarkable accomplishment.

When I read it I knew I wasn't the only one.

When I went to High School in Kansas I soon learned that an author had gone to the same one as me. After a few years, I found Scott Heim's first book "Mysterious Skin". I read it and it was like a punch in the chest. The story takes place in my community and amongst the people I thought I knew. I also share the same sexuality as the main character. I found the book to be a sweet and painful release to the suffering I've gone through in this state of Kansas. The hurt and horror of this book was all to familiar. Heim's words and language, his graphic paintings of reality, and his twists of beauty and perversity pour out onto the pages of this unworldy novel. Don't expect to read it and pass it off. His books will live in your memory for a long time. To take his work to heart is to look at this world with wider eyes. Definately, this book is a must. Even though the book hurts so much to read and you will want to put it away, you can't. And in the end, through the horror, you will see the beauty of his work.