Midwestern Skin

Author Scott Heim may live on the East Coast now, but he's a Midwestern writer at heart. Born in 1966 in Hutchinson, Heim is a University of Kansas grad best known for his first novel, 1995's Mysterious Skin. Set in Hutchinson, the disturbing story concerns two boys and the memory that one represses and the other savors. It was turned into a play and, in 2005, a movie starring indie it-boy Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The events of Heim's latest novel unfold in rural Kansas and involve memory, too. In We Disappear, a freelance editor comes home to get off drugs and figure out his mother's fuzzy recollection of a childhood abduction. Heim himself returns to these parts tonight for a 7 p.m. book signing and discussion at the Kansas City, Missouri, Public Library's Plaza Branch (4801 Main). Call 816-701-3407 for reservations to this free event. Scott Heim
Tue., April 22, 7 p.m., 2008