Mysterious Skin
Scott Heim
Something happened during the summer when he was eight that has dogged Brian Lackey his entire life. After a Little League game, he found himself coming to in the crawlspace beneath his house with no memory of what occurred in the previous hours. He becomes convinced that he was the victim of an alien abduction, but as his repressed memories begin to surface, he realises that the key to unlocking the past lies with Neil McCormick, fellow Little-Leaguer turned hustler. As the story builds towards the meeting between the two, Heim paints a powerful picture of the effect of abuse and of the different coping mechanisms it triggers. He manages to keep a measured tone that never descends into shrillness or preachiness, letting the story speak for itself.
Heim also keeps things interesting with an evocation of small-town Kansas, and by filtering the narrative through a variety of characters.