i have read books by russell banks that i have liked a lot -- i have a tremendously fond memory of Rule of the Bone and Continental Drift and his book about liberia, The Darling, certainly has value -- it's a pretty brutal look at liberia's terrible history of massacres, though i'm always a bit wary of books about africa's wounds written by first worlders.

still.

this book would get 5 stars solely for the fact that it focuses on the horrible plight of convicted sex offenders, a violation of human rights so blatant it makes your stomach hurt. since almost no one knows what paroled sex offenders must go through, i recommend the book just so that folks might learn what we as a society do -- the human sacrifices we require -- in the name of our fantasy of "wholesomeness." sex is the ultimate canary in the coalmine. if you are following the republican primaries you know what i am talking about. never mind poverty, third-world-level education, perennial wars, lack of basic healthcare. it's the sex lives of americans who determine whether we are a good or a bad nation. end of debate.

so, sex offenders, alone among felons, enjoy the privilege of being banned from the proximity of children for a ridiculous amount of years after completion of their sentence, and of being on the sex offender registry for the rest of their lives. to qualify as a sex offenders it is enough to be, say, a 19 year old who had sex with his 17 year old girlfriend, or to have been caught with your dick in your hand in a public place (say you were talking a piss; say you are homeless; say you got very very unlucky). i kid you not.

in miami, where this book is set, sex offenders used to have (for all i know still have) only three places in which they could live. every other spot on the map was within the prohibited 2,500 ft from a school, playground, homeless shelter etc. the three places were: 1) under a specific bridge of the julia tuttle causeway 2) at the airport and 3) in the south everglades. since places 2) and 3) were not exactly practicable, this little sex offender city sprouted under the bridge, where these guys lived in tents or makeshift shanties while trying to keep a day job and support themselves. occasionally the police would raid the shanty town for sanitary reasons. it was awful.

the miami herald and other news outlet (google "miami sex offenders") brought this shame to the attention of the public and now the men have been relocated. i should know where but i don't. i'm sure it's not much better.

so this is the subject of this book. the protagonist, known only as the Kid, is a very shy 22 year old who grew up in a dismally neglectful family and developed an addiction to porn (banks has theory about why people develop “perverse” sexual desires). one day, trying to overcome his almost total isolation, arranged to hook up with a 14 year old he had met online. father called the police, end of story. the Kid is now entirely uninterested in sex and wholly interested in making it through the day. he's also so internalized the sex offender label that he could not perceive himself as anything else.

etc. etc. there is a story but it's a lame story and the book drags. i didn't even understand how it ended. i'm talking about the last 4 lines. i don't get them.

so, not a spectacular literary effort, but clearly banks cares about these guys and spends some serious effort trying to make the reader understand what goes on in the mind of the sex offender and what goes on in the society who punishes him so harshly.