金石堂小鬼頭心想。就連痲瘋病人也值得有喘息空間吧，不該只是因為他們生病，就放棄他們，不然醫院是幹麼用的？還有，誰沒有問題。
這輩子，小鬼頭沒遇過關心他的人。母親對他的照顧比寵物不如，同學看他像空氣，自認沒有朋友，他和寵物巨鬣蜥「伊吉」相依為命，沉迷於網路色情世界。有天在聊天室認識了「白蘭蒂18」，生理需求讓他無視於對方的年紀，終因企圖與未成年少女性交而入獄。出獄後，他戴上GPS電子腳鐐展開假釋生活。由於佛州法律規定，性侵加害人居住出入必須與孩童聚集處相距750公尺以上，該區的性侵加害人全被迫聚在連結本土與沙洲的堤道下營地。無處可去，小鬼頭也帶著「伊吉」到這裡。
教授出現的時候，小鬼頭正在帳篷內讀聖經。眼前體型龐大的人說明來意，希望小鬼頭能幫助他驗證自己對性侵加害人與遊民的社會學理論。一陣思忖後，小鬼頭決定受訪。就在兩人建立夥伴關係的過程中，教授的過往背景一一浮現。小鬼頭心中惴惴不安，這個聰明絕頂總是掌控全局的人究竟是誰，臃腫的驅殼裡藏著怎樣的祕密與謊言。
羅素．班克斯為加拿大導演艾騰伊格言電影《意外的春天》原著作者，風格寫實，致力探討當代美國社會的底層，「我行我素，不受市場左右」（查爾斯．麥格拉斯《紐約時報》），「兩度入圍普立茲獎，最富於同情的美國當代小說家！」（海倫．舒爾曼《紐約時報》）首部中文翻譯作品《觸覺失憶》細膩而深刻，對於人性與社會性的瞭解都能滿足讀者。
Suspended in a strangely modern-day version of limbo, a young man must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known only as the Kid, and on probation after doing time for a liaison with an underage girl, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to live within 2,500 feet of anywhere children might gather. With nowhere else to go, the Kid takes up residence in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders. Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid is in many ways an innocent, trapped by impulses and foolish choices. Enter the Professor, a man who has built his own life on secrets and lies. A university sociologist of enormous size and intellect, he finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research on homelessness and reoffending sex offenders. The two men forge a tentative partnership. But when the Professor's past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men's relationship shifts. Suddenly, the Kid must reconsider everything he has come to believe, and choose what course of action to take when faced with a new kind of moral decision.
★本書中譯版《觸覺失憶》由衛城出版。
作者簡介
羅素．班克斯（Russell Banks）
聲譽卓著的小說家，曾任「國際作家議會」的主席，也是「美國藝術暨文學學會」的會員。他的著作被譯成二十種語言，獲獎無數。目前定居於紐約上州和佛州邁阿密兩地。其他作品有《大陸漂移》(Continental Drift)、《骨頭的規則》（Rule of the Bone）、《拆雲者》（Cloudsplitter），以及一九九七年由艾騰伊格言（Atom Egoyan）改編拍攝的《意外的春天》（The Sweet Hereafter）。
One of America's most prestigious fiction writers, Russell Banks is president of the International Parliament of Writers and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has received numerous international prizes and awards. He lives in upstate New York.
