Garth Greenwell’s first book, What Belongs to You, succeeded even if his weaknesses were in plain sight. His sense of language so effectively captured abjection and sexual obsession that you didn’t mind whatever else was wrong with it. Greenwell seldom changes register, and he can no more imagine his way into another person's life than the author of your car manual. Yet he’s a born writer, a master at transposing his consciousness onto the page. I understood people’s initial reservations about him: too ornate, a knack for perfectly unsexy sex scenes, a nonexistent sense of humor. But I understood even better the across-the-board raves the book received. Here was something from another time, a Serious Novel you’d actually want to read, a swelling narrative voice whose subject was the nature of passion. I wish What Belongs to You were coming out now. A soaring exercise in style transcending corporate literary accolade magnets, distinct from the nauseating, irony-saturated gameplaying of downtown New York — has there been anything like it since?
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