Five Questions for Author Russell Banks

Athena McKenzie | November 17th, 2011


Zoomer talks with the author of The Sweet Hereafter and Affliction about his new novel, Lost Memory of Skin.

The Lost Memory of Skin is the story of a young man, known only as the Kid, a convicted sex offender barely out of childhood himself. Recently released from prison and caught up in a limbo created by the rules imposed on sex offenders, he is forced to live under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders and social outcasts.


Athena McKenzie: Because of the cover, I have to ask, where did Iggy the lizard come from?

Russell Banks: Iggy came to me in an interesting way. I knew I wanted the Kid to have some kind of animal because an animal was the only way he could make a connection to other creatures that was real and not digitalized. I was sitting in a café in South Beach one afternoon and this beautiful woman walked in with an iguana on a leash. Sort of an attention getting device I’m sure. But I thought “Wow I’d like to talk to that iguana! I wonder if I talk to the girl first if she’d introduce me to the iguana!” Funny it wasn’t the other way around. So I bypassed the woman and went straight to the iguana.  It was the first time I’d ever seen one up close or held one and I just started to bombard her with questions. I thought this is perfect. It looks fierce and scary but in fact it’s a vegetarian animal, very mild-mannered and very sensitive to humans and its environment. It was the perfect animal for the Kid to attach himself to. I didn’t mean for it to be a huge symbol. It was just appropriate that he would have a pet like that. He wouldn’t have a pet like everyone else.

AM: I read that you were a bit worried about the reception to the Lost Memory of Skin. Why?

RB: It’s taboo material, especially in the States. I didn’t think about it while I was writing the book. I write what I’m interested in or what puzzles me and I can only come to understand through the process of fiction. I didn’t know anything about this— not even what I thought about the world this kid arises from and is trapped in.

So I wrote the book without regard for what anyone else would think of it. I was writing for myself. Once you finish it though and it starts to go through the process of publication and begins to enter the public’s hands, you start to think about that. It’s inevitable. This past summer, when the book was finishing up, I thought “Oh boy, maybe I went too far this time.”
I think it’s tougher for a number of people if they think that it’s going to be down and out in Miami with this convicted sex offender and they don’t know that the Kid is a tender human being — an honest person with a wicked sense of humour, that lends light to the world that he’s in. They may not realize also that the book is kind of a fable. It isn’t just this down and dirty kind of realism. There is that element to it but it’s a little more fabulistic than that and meant to be.

I’ve had a few encounters while I’ve been doing this book tour. The couple of times I had people call in on radio shows, who were themselves victims of sexual abuse and they accuse me of blaming the victim. I have to say, “You know that’s  not really the case. Have you read the book?” And they say, “No and I’m not going to either.” And that’s their right. But if they had, then we could have a discussion on it.

On the other hand, over the past few weeks I’ve met a lot of people at readings who have come up to personally speak to me who were victims of sexual abuse, and judges who have sentenced sexual offenders, and prosecutors and defenders and psychologists who have worked with sexual offenders, who say, “Thank goodness. This is good, you’re bringing this out into the light.”
I’ve been very gratified with that kind of response. You always get a few kicks in the head if you set yourself up on a talk radio show no matter what the book is.

People need to start thinking about what their attitude is. It’s usually somewhere between panic and denial. I think that’s generally true for Americans and Canadians alike. I understand it’s the same thing in the UK and many other places in the world. There is a kind of panic that flips into denial and dehumanizes these people. Those people who are up close to the sex offenders know that they’re human beings with families and spouses. They’re not monsters. They’re human-beings. Terribly flawed human beings. Some of them are mentally ill.

AM: Did you try to avoid reading the press about your book?

RB: I don’t avoid it especially. I have a standing rule with my publicist not to send me the bad reviews. It’s going to ruin my lunch! And I don’t need them, but I do like the good reviews, so do send those down! I don’t monitor them but I don’t have a hard and fast rule about avoiding them. The truth is whether it’s a good review or a bad review it’s not really going to alter what you’re going to write next. So you wonder what good does it do in the end.

AM: How did serving on the Giller jury affect your craft as a writer, if at all?

RB: It might have if I was younger, because anytime you sit down and read 100 plus books in a given year, it’s going to have an impact on your craft and how you view your own enterprise. I don’t think it affected me that way because I’m pretty much caught in the role I dug for myself. I’m pretty much stuck in it.

It did help me understand certain Canadian preoccupations and the differences between that and American preoccupations. When you sit on the other side of the boarder it’s very easy to remain ignorant about what’s going on up here. You know, the bright lights of American pop and literary culture and the self-absorption makes it easy to ignore north of the border. It’s also very hard for Canadian writers to get published in the US, so you don’t see much of it except for the very well-known writers. Even if you are as interested in it as I am and live close to the border like I do. My father was Canadian and two of my grandparents were Canadian, so I have an affinity with Canada. But even for me it’s hard unless I make a willful concerted effort.

The Gillers really forced me to read a lot of Canadian fiction and then I saw the multi-ethnic writing going on. It’s really interesting, because in the US most immigrant stories are Latino. But it’s a really different kind of complex society up here.
I noticed a difference also with contemporary American literature in the Canadian preoccupation with the natural world. Not in a sappy way, but there was an inescapable presence in much of the fiction, which is not that true of American fiction.

AM: Several of your previous novels have become films. Do you see that happening with Lost Memory of Skin?

RB: I didn’t at all. When I did think about it, I thought it would be too grim for the big screen these days, where everybody wants these happy meet-cute stories and adolescent male comedies and comic book characters and so forth.
When I was touring I met with my agents in LA and they agreed there was no way to get this made as a feature film. But they did think it could make for a good series for TV, like on HBO, where they really do more adventurous stuff. But then this morning I got an email from a director and screenwriter Paul Schrader saying he’d really like to make a movie out of it. He also made Affliction for me, so I thought if he can see it maybe it can be done. He said he found the Kid’s character to be really unusual and interesting. He said there’s no one else like him in film. I can’t speculate about it as I am making two other films this year, so we’ll see.