Russell Banks's Novel About Sex Offenders

One way to judge the morality of a society is to look at how it treats its prisoners. Another is to look at how it treats its children. Russell Banks examines both in his new novel, Lost Memory of Skin (Ecco, 416 pages, $25.99). In this disturbing, intelligent, but ultimately misshapen book, Mr. Banks forces readers to enter into the mind of a convicted sex offender. This turns out to be not as sordid as it sounds, because the sex offender in question is something of an innocent. In fact, he’s a virgin. His crime is soliciting a minor for sex via the Internet, but as details of the encounter are revealed, it is difficult to find much malice in his intent. Mostly, it seems to be a crime committed out of loneliness.