Skipper, hapless and seasick Navy man, bumbles around plagued by closeness of death since childhood, while infantilizing his daughter Cassandra (compare to Greek namesake), whose faith in him hovers at a lukewarm tolerance, until it becomes something sharper. Skipper yearns to always do the right thing, but always falls flat. Suicides abound in his life but he still keeps pasting a smile on his face. The action is primarily juxtaposed on two islands: one a cold gothic rock of impending doom peopled by human predators, where Skipper experiences his final crushing loss (yet that also frees him); the other a bizarre benevolent white father warm-water paradise situation where Skipper finds solace as a giver of the 'seeds of life', thus eclipsing his previous role as perpetual witness to the 'seeds of death'. Story is refracted through a kaleidoscopic lens of time, in shortish segments, keeping the pace moving along at a good clip. Hawkes' prose is earthy and visceral but never overbearing, scraping dread up in the reader's mind, where knowledge of final outcomes appears up front and the telling of the how stretches its lean muscular limbs out to the end.

I was an old child of the moon and lay sprawled on the night, musing and half-exposed in the suspended and public posture of all those night travelers who are without beds, those who sleep on public benches or curl into the corners of out-of-date railway coaches, all those who dream their uncovered dreams and try to sleep on their hands. ( )

I just finished Second Skin by John Hawkes-- what a wonderful experience! His
writing is so beautiful that you almost don't care what the story is about.
That said-- there's plenty of story to be had here. Granted you have to be able
to handle rape, suicide, murder-- but really it is all very subtly and even
vaguely related-- not at all gory or graphic, and overall the story is upbeat.
His characters are so complex I'm still trying to decide how I feel about the
main character, Skipper, not to mention his daughter Cassandra. I am looking
forard to more of his books-- though they seem to all be out of print. I can't
imagine why.

Rating: 4.75 ( )