Skins

Poet, short story writer, and former journalist, Adrian Louis presents a harshly comic vision of Indian life in this novel set on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwest South Dakota. He immerses the reader in a compelling mix of Indian and white cultures and the resulting ambiguities, competing worldviews, and conflicted values. Rudy, the Indian cop, portrays these confusing conflicts beautifully, representing both the law in his tribal police uniform and vigilante justice in his blackface and pantyhose mask. Revealing other dimensions of Rudy's confusion, Louis explores his relationship to the women in his life. Married and estranged from his wife, Rudy indulges his growing attraction to his cousin's wife, Stella, while he carries on with other men's wives as well. Meanwhile, afflicted with hypertension, he takes meds that affect his sexual performance, and much of the novel traces the rising and falling cycles of his libido, all of which are unpredictable and seemingly under the spell of forces beyond him. It is significant that Iktomi, the trickster spirit and shape-shifter, is a central theme in the novel, for appearance and reality, wisdom and stupidity, pride and shame, love and rage are all in a continuing dance for dominance. Also at the center of the story is Rudy's relationship with his alcoholic older brother, Mogey. While casting an unblinking eye on the devastating impact of alcohol consumption on the reservation, Louis both condemns and forgives those who seek oblivion in the bottom of the bottle. In his hands, Mogey is a wonderful creation. While there are vague allusions to the grim effect of two tours of duty in Vietnam, Louis doesn't excuse Mogey for choosing his path of self-destruction. Yet through his brother Rudy, the reader can begin to understand the deep love possible for someone unable to resist the pull of despair. This book is not for everyone, as some of the reviews already posted here indicate. However, I recommend it highly for what it has to say about the Indian nations - in their own voices and without the moralizing or sentimentality of those who have never walked in their shoes. Also worth watching is the film "Skins" (2002, available on DVD), which is based on the book.

Adrian Louis is a genius! I could NOT put this book down! I even snuck it into work with me. It is sad, funny, gut-wretching, sweet---it has it all! If you don't thoroughly enjoy this book--CHECK YOUR PULSE!!!!!

Although this book hit home in all the problems of society, (ie, alcoholism, abuse, etc) there was some good indian humor. Being raised on a "rez" I was able to relate to the story. Some of the characters in the book are on my rez. Recommend it to all.

This is a hardcore book of life on the rez. It is so accurate that I can only catorgize Louis's writting as "Brilliant". I highly recommed this book and guarentee that this will leave you craving for more!

_Skins_, a first novel by Adrian C. Louis is at once compelling as it is repulsive. It begins with Rudy Yellow Shirt's misshap in an outhouse and being bitten by a black widow on his testicles as a young man. Keep this image in mind as his story progresses from the traumatized child who is at the mercy of his brother's humiliating laughter, through the adult policeman who makes an attempt to justify his womanizing by blaming his newly awakened libido on another "accident." The Siouian trickster figure Iktomi is blamed both for the bite on his testicles and the fall that causes Rudy to turn into the "Avenging Warrior", a womanizing, rapist who lusts after highschool girls who steals his cousin's wife. It is difficult to suspend one's belief that this concoction of coincidence passes for a plot that basically follows the exploits of a rather adolescent-like Rudy Yellow Shirt as he goes from he bed of his wife to his cousin's wife. Along the way, in his thwarted efforts to keep the locals from drinking themselves to death, he sets a liquor store, with his pathetic, alcoholic brother sleeping on the roof, on fire. One tragedy spawns another as his brother recovers from his burns, Rudy is struck by his memory of watching Mogie molest his mother while she was passed out drunk. Rudy's inappropriate response to his compounded traumas is to go on a fornicating spree, and to force himself on his ex-wife on the day she presents him with divorce papers. This is a particularly distasteful novel that detracts again and again from it's thoroughly misogynistic bent and feeds readers a highly unrealistic view of the American Indian world that is set on destroying itself. The character development of Rudy Yellow Shirt as a tramatized child, teen, and adult creates the portrayal of a pathetic man with high blood pressure who is overweight and who tries to justify though incredible means male menopause at its worst. We see, for example, through the eyes of this personna a sexualized glimpse of him lusting after high school girls, but are detracted from holding that image long enough to realize what has happened. Our view is shifted to Mogie, drunk and hanging out, or other immediate distractions that occur so quickly that the man in his car is forgotten. The rape scene is most disturbing in that it is told from the point of view of the narrator who makes an attempt to garner the sympathy of the reader with the illusion of repentance and Rudy's determination to win Vivienne back. She is viewed through Rudy's eyes. Readers are instructed on how to take her in: what she is wearing is described by the narrator in terms of what he likes, which includes his lustful preoccupation with her body movements. When we are given details of Rudy's rape of Vivienne--like a practiced abuser--Rudy is repentent. Rudy's description of having sex with his cousin's wife is even less devoid of human compassion and there is not evidence that he loves this woman as he clai