Skipper's Stolen Kisses: The Logic ofSecond Skinby John Hawkes

Abstract

kJecond Skin, like most of John Hawkes's novels, looks like a long nightmare, both for the char? acters and for its readers who cannot help feeling extremely uneasy, confronted as they are by apparently meaningless scenes and unusual alliances of words.1 It is unclear from the start what Skipper, the main character and narrator of the book, wants. Second Skin is a long flashback, tell? ing us about his life from childhood onwards. He explains that he was able to survive in very trying circumstances ? among them the death of his wife, then that of his daughter, Cassandra. There is a marked contrast between the end of the book and the earlier parts. At the end, Skipper has settled in a paradise-like island, and he seems to have reached the end of his trials. Most of the book, however, deals with his past experiences recounted through harrowing scenes. One of the most difficult of these scenes could act as a sort of mise en abyme, as it seems to orchestrate all of the main themes of the novel. The passage ? it would be the third chapter of the book if chapters were numbered (pp. 40 to 44) ? is puzzling, for it is crowded with details which look perfectly useless so far the progression of the plot is concerned. Indeed, the scene seems to be more a fantasy than the actual description of a series of events. If the end of the book on the utopian island means the perfect fulfillment of the narrator's wishes,2 the rest of the book can be said to represent an indirect expression of Skipper's unconscious desires. The two scenes are not