Mysterious Skin

Rating:
Summary: Literature at its most beautiful
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely moving, powerful, story
Review: I must admit that passages of this book were very hard to read because I found the subject matter to be repellent. However, I think the root of my feelings stems from the fact that Scott describes an uncomfortable situation so beautifully, that you almost feel guilty enjoying the prose that describes such horrible acts.

Brian and Neil are two young men forever linked by their past experiences, but could not have interpreted the experience any more differently. Brian searches for answers in the hull of a spaceship, convinced he was abducted by aliens, while Neil moves from trick to trick, leading a risky lifestyle and coming to some difficult realizations along the way.

I thought this was a wonderful story of two people looking for answers and closure. It is beautifully written and takes us to a place that is uncomfortable to look at, but gives us two different perspectives to view it from. I highly recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Beauty At Its Most Anguished, Simplisticly Intricate
Review: Scott Heim is one of the best authors I've read in a long time. He is up on a pedestal with the likes of Truman Capote. His debut novel "Mysterious Skin" is about Neil and Brian, two gay boys, who through trials and tribulations, discover who they are, and what they are. There just aren't any adequate words in the human language to describe Scott Heim's beautiful, haunting prose. He is incredibly poetic, and the lives of Brian and Neil are so exqiusitely painful and achingly beautiful that it should drive you to tears, and if it doesn't, then check your chest cavity for a heart. How anyone could possibly give this book a bad review is simply beyond me. Just be forewarned: Do not read this book on a gray rainy day, while feeling dismal, or while using heavy machinery. It is sure to depress, but make angry, and also begs for attention.

~Steven Harvey

Rating:
Summary: Powerful and Mesmerizing
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: When I read it I knew I wasn't the only one.
Review: 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.