1

A. INTRINSIC ELEMENT OF NOVEL MYSTERIOUS SKIN

BY SCOTT HEIM
1. Synopsis
Born in 1972 in Kansas, 8-year-olds Neil McCormick and Brian Lackey are sexually abused by
their baseball coach. Both boys are targets for abuse due to their dysfunctional families: Neil's
single mother, Ellen, is neglectful and preoccupied with a string of boyfriends, while Brian's
parents are on the verge of divorce.
Neil showed homosexual proclivities at an early age. He interprets the coach's abuse as an
initiation into sexuality and becomes sexually compulsive, being mainly attracted to bearish,
middle-aged men. Neil begins to prostitute himself at the age of fifteen. Eventually Neil leaves
home, drifts into petty crime, and becomes a prostitute in New York City. His friend Wendy,
who harbors an unrequited crush, describes Neil as having not a heart, but "a bottomless black
hole, that you fall into." Neil does begin to show a compassionate side, particularly following
an encounter with a man dying from AIDS who wanted nothing more than a backrub, only to
feel touched. The encounter leaves Neil to withdraw from his life as a prostitute and take a job
as a cashier. One day on his way home, he is tricked by a large man into giving him a ride
home. The man makes him snort cocaine before raping and beating him.
Brian reacts to the abuse by developing psychogenic amnesia and forgetting the events. He
remembers waiting for his parents to drive him home from a baseball game, followed by a gap
of several hours after which he regained consciousness, bloodied and hiding under the crawl
space of his home. For many years Brian suffers from chronic black-outs, nose bleeds and bed-
wetting. In his teen years, Brian becomes nerdy and withdrawn, perceived by others as nearly
asexual. He has unsettling recurring dreams about being touched by a strange, bluish hand.
These odd dreams lead Brian to suspect that he and another boy may have been abducted by
aliens. At the age of 18, Brian meets a young woman named Avalyn who also believes she was
abducted by aliens. They begin to form a fragile friendship; though, when she takes a romantic
interest in Brian and touches him sexually, he reacts with intense panic and refuses to speak to
her again.
While trying to untangle his confusing memories, Brian sees a photo of his childhood baseball
team, recognizing a young Neil as the boy from his bizarre dreams. Taking the initiative to
meet his former teammate, Brian instead meets Neil's friend Eric, and through him learns about
their common acquaintance.
After being beaten and raped by a trick, Neil leaves New York City and returns home.
Eventually, the two young men meet for the first time in over a decade. After hearing Brians
story Neil takes him to the home that was previously rented by the baseball coach and they
break in. Neil tells him the real story, explaining how the coach groomed both boys to make the
abuse seems normal and acceptable, and how a bluish porch light shining through the bedroom
window gave the abusive incidents an eerie atmosphere. He then tells Brian that the coach
made them kiss each other before he kissed them both himself. Finally remembering
everything, Brian breaks down and collapses into Neil's arms as Christmas carolers sing Silent
Night.
2


2. Themes
The novel centres on child sexual abuse. That is its key theme though Mysterious Skin is not an
thematic but a work of atmosphere, tension, and psychological. The novel takes the victims'
viewpoint and presents the dark and bleak nature of the abuse to which they are subjected, and
the resulting impact on their life.
3. Characterizations
Neil McCormick : An adolescent male prostitute living in Kansas. Neil is broodingly
narcissistic, emotionally hard, closed of and withdrawn into himself. He spends his time
flaunting about how many men he has turned tricks with, treating sex as a quantity not a quality
and indifferent to their dangers. He consistently puts up a brave front for the world, going as far
as to feign ignorance to his good friends affections. His devastating loneliness is illuminated
when he calls his mother after he was drugged, raped and beaten by a trick.
Brian Lackey: A more self-effaced, awkward and shy boy who is obsessed with alien
abduction. This fascination implies a deeper, psychological realism to Brian. The aliens
represent something lingering in his mind from the past which he goes on a mission to find.
Eventually, his belief that he was abducted by aliens slowly reveals itself as an emotional
cover-up. He is nerdy, touchingly sympathetic in his confusion, extremely nervous, and
seemingly asexual.
Coach Heider: A paedophile baseball coach who took advantage of Neils loneliness and
sexually abused him. He would tell Neil how everything is all right and that what he did is
normal. Neil, as a young boy, believed that. Eventhough he also molests other children he tells
Neil that the boy is special which makes him his favorite. After a whole summer coaching the
kids league he moves to another town and never been heard since.
Wendy Peterson: Neils soulmate. She previously has a crush on Neil before eventually
realizes that where normal people have heart, Neil has a bottomless black hole. Despite her
Goth outfits and sweet smile she has strong character. She knows there is something deeply
wounded about Neil but she accepts Neils nature and always warns him of its risk.
Ellen McCormick: Neils neglecting mother who loves her son but loves men even more.
Eric Preston: Eric is Neils and then later Brians friend. He admires Neil as a celebrity and
adores Brian as a bestfriend.
Avalyn Friesen: A young woman who claims to have been abducted by alien to a local tv
station. After watching the show Brian drives to her house and tells her his story, hoping that
she can help him unravel his lost past. later it shows that Avalyn harbours a crush on Brian and
when she tries to touch him sexually he reacts with panic and refuses to talk to her again.
3

Mrs. Lackey: Brians mother and a sherrif in town. She sees Brian obsession of Alien as a silly
thing but she still indulges him.
Mr. Lackey: Brians father who is feared by his own family. He is a negligent father who just
cares for his own needs than his familys.
4. Setting
The novel has two settings of time, first, in the summer of 1981,
Excerpt: That summer, the summer of 81, the blackouts were both frequent and severe. My
mother took me to Dr. Kaufman, the most expensive and revered of Little Rivers trio of
doctors. (page 11, line 14)
And the second time setting is troughout the year of 1991,
Excerpt:
A typical entry:
6/29/91
I get out of a station wagon, my little league uniform is on (page 85, line 18)
As the time setting, the setting of place also taken in two cities, in Hutchinson, Kansas,
Excerpt: Did one of the other moms whose sons played Little League in Hutchinson drive me
home? I think so, I answered. (page 9, line 17)
And in New York City
Excerpt: Life in New York didnt begin as planned: I suffered through a record-breaking four
weekstwenty-nine days, to be exactwithout sex. (page 135, line 2)
About the setting of environment, the author uses lower to middle class,
Evidence:
Almost all of the characters live in a small house in Hutchinson, the city which inhabitats
mostly from lower to middle class. Even in New York City, both Wendy and Neil live in a
small apartment.
Excerpt: Coach lived alone in a small house off Main Street, near the Kansas State
Fairgrounds. Once a year, Hutchinson hosted the State Fair, our citys major tourist attraction.
( page 23, line 3)
4

5. Plot Structure
The narrative alternates the plot from the present and the past, mostly recollecting on the
harrowing moment when Neils baseball coach sexually abused him.
Exposition: The exposition begins when eight-year-old Neil becomes Coach Heiders star
little League player. His mother is always busy with her strings of boyfriend so Neil always
spends his time in Coach Heiders home playing video games and eating candies. The lonely
little boy adores his coach so much and always wants to make him proud. When the coach tells
him that sex is an expression of his love, Neil unquestionly believes it. The coach sometimes
also brings other boy to his home. Neil gets to pick the boy. Randomly Neil chooses the boy
who is sitting alone after the baseball game, waiting for his parents who forget to pick him up.
The boy is Brian.
Suspense: Eight-year-old Brian is found bleeding under the crawl space of his house and
cannot remember an entire five-hour period of time. His negligent father does not pay attention
to the event. After that he founds himself to have unpredictable blackouts and nosebleeds from
time to time even until in his teenage age. He also has frequent strange dreams about being
touched by blue hands in a blue light that makes him believes that he was abducted by alien.
Meanwhile the sexual abuse continues for Neil for an entire summer, as he identified with the
coach as a father figure and developed a compulsion to please older men. That leads him in
adolescence to become a prostitute.
The rising action: Neil follows his bestfriend, Wendy, to live in New York City and continues
his job as a prostitute. But then he meets a trick dying of Aids who pays him merely to rub his
back just for the sake of being touched. This occurence makes him to reconsider his life choice.
The risk of his job and the loneliness stops him from hustling.
Brian, still looking for his past, meets Avalyn, a strange girl who claims to have been abducted
by alien. Brian brings up about his strange dreams and there was another boy in the dreams.
Avalyn told him to focus on him. The other boy was Neil and he eventually found his house but
he had already left for new york. he meets Neils friend, Eric, and they become friends ever
since.
Climax: the climax of this story rises in a freezing night two days before christmas, Neil is
approached by a car on his way home from work as a cashier in a fast food restaurant. The man
in the car said that he will take him home. But after Neil get in the car he is brought to the
mans house then raped and beaten into a bloodied mess before abandoned on the street to go
home by himself. Back at his apartments bathroom, Neil is hugging himself, crying for the
first time.
The screaming continued for two minutes, three, then stopped. In the seconds that followed,
the entire world grew incredibly quiet, and I cried.
5

Falling action: Neil returns to his hometown and told his mom that he was mugged to explain
the bruises. Knowing that he is back Eric brings Brian to his home and they finally meet for the
first time after over a decade. After hearing Brians story, Neil takes Brian to the coachs old
house and they breaks in. They sit on the couch as Neil tells Brian everything. Brian realizes
that he never was abducted and learns of what really happened to them as he has another
episode of nosebleed and cries in Neils lap.
Conclusion: Neil realizes for the first time how great was the emotional cost of what happened
to him and Brian. How their whole life is affected by what happened in summer 81. And he is
sorry for what had happened to Brian. Brian blanked out the episodes because he couldn't face
the truth, and Neil can't face it either, though he thinks he can. He even convinces himself he's
happy. The smiling, friendly coach damaged them more than they know. But as they sat
listening to the Christmas carolers singing Silent Night, they know that their life will still
continue on, and somehow they will save one another.
... It was a light that shone over our faces, our wounds and scars. It was a light so brilliant and
white it could have been beamed from heaven, and Brian and I could have been angels, basking
in it. But it wasnt, and we werent. (the last line of Mysterious skin).
6. Point of view
First person with different characters point of view in each chapter.
7. Tenses
Past tense.
8. Tone
The tone used in this short story is desolating and devastating which is not a surprise because
the novel tells about the trauma of chilhood sexual abuse.
9. Symbolism
Alien abduction
Alien abduction is projecting child abuse. Something that is hard to understand, leave a
traumatic mark, physical marks, and when it is happening you never feel quite there. You are
lost in yourself, as if huddling under the blanket of your soul.
Mysterious Skin
The circumstance of what Brian and Neil have gone through has left them scarred although it
is not visible there is something about them, due to this there is a mysterious quality in them.
"skin" hinting from it's definition as a "coat" or "covering" would suggest they are trying to
6

conceal something even if they don't know what it is as though something is on the surface,
the "skin," seems mysterious.
10. Style of writing
A writer usually combines two or more styles of writing to create an interesting story. In
Mysterious Skin, the author also combines both descriptive and narrative style in his writing.
Like when Brian describes his dream to Avalyn and how Eric narrates his meeting with Brian
in his letter to Neil.
11.Imagery
The example of imagery below is taken from page 9 line 41 until page 10 line 11
Our house sat on a small hill, designating our roof as the highest vantage point in town. It
offered a view of Little River and its surrounding fields, cemetery, and ponds. The roof served
as my fathers sanctuary.
From this imagery, the author provides visual images of Brians house, its location and what
surrounding it.
He would escape there after fights with my mother, leaning a ladder against the house and
lazing in a chair he had nailed to the space beside the chimney where the roof leveled off. I
would hear my father above me during his countless insomniac nights, his shoe soles
scraping against the shingles.
The auditory sense is from the sound of Brians father shoe soles on the roof above his room.
My fathers presence on the roof should have been a comfort, a balm against my fear of the
dark. But it wasnt. When his rage became too much to handle, my father would swear and
stomp his boot, the booming filling my room and paralyzing me.
This paragraph accomplish a vivid description of Brians feeling and reaction everytime his
father has a bad mood. He fears his father and that fear makes him paralyzed.
12. Moral value
- The person who sexually abuses a child is usually an adult or older child known to the victim,
often an authority figure that the child knows, trusts or loves. The offender usually uses
coercion and manipulation, not physical force, to engage the child so parents should be more
aware of their children environment. Parents also need to provide a loving environment in their
house and care for their children because it is within their rights in this world.
- The psychological trauma of child sexual abuse is more serious and dangerous than the
physical. It also ruins their future and the damaging impact will never be easily cured, Once
the milk has been spilled, the stain just won't come out.
7

- Dont trust people easily.
B. EXTRINSIC ELEMENT OF NOVEL MYSTERIOUS SKIN
BY SCOTT HEIM
Scott Heim, the Author of Mysterious Skin was born in Hutchinson, Kansas, in 1966. He
grew up in a small farming community there, and later attended the University of Kansas in
Lawrence, earning a B.A. in English and Art History in 1989 and an M.A. in English
Literature in 1991. He attended the M.F.A. program in Writing at Columbia University,
where he wrote his first novel, Mysterious Skin. HarperCollins published that book in 1996.
Heim won fellowships to the London Arts Board as their International Writer-in-Residence,
and to the Sundance Screenwriters' Lab for his adaptation of Mysterious Skin.
Mysterious Skin was adapted for the stage by playwright Prince Gomolvilas, premiering in
San Francisco. It was subsequently adapted to film by director Gregg Araki and Antidote
Films. The movie starred Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Brady Corbet, Elisabeth Shue, Michelle
Trachtenberg, and Mary Lynn Rajskub.
In Mysterious Skin, Scott Heim explores the very different repercussions of childhood sexual
trauma for two young boys. It's a heavy subject, and Heim does not shy away from the details
of it. The reader is present for some explicitly written sexual abuse of an eight year old,
which does not make for an easy read. This is one of those novels which have some literary
qualities to it, and does not stop at the surface level of narrating a story. There is pain,
psychological exploration, there are alternative perspectives on the events and on the characters'
inners lives which make it, unlike many books that have followed, a proper work of literature.
The ending is extremely touching, very emotionally charged, and it certainly leaves the readers
with strong emotions and a deep sadness. Every novel that uses Kansas as a setting parades an
endless line of freaks, perverts, alcoholics and drug addicts in front of the unsuspecting reader.
Mysterious Skin is no different, but the author brings the 1980's Kansas right back into sharp
focus with deep understanding and humanity.







8


Website References:
. - http://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/news-features-and-safety-
tips/Pages/Parent-Tips-for-Preventing-and-Identifying-Child-Sexual-
Abuse.aspx#sthash.QE2VMbUf.dpuf
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/53047.Scott_Heim
http://www.amazon.com/Mysterious-Skin-Scott-Heim/product-
reviews/0060841699/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=0&sortBy=bySubmis
sionDateDescending#R3FQA461SYMBI4
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370986/