Recommendation from a trusted friend.

This is a book that gives me pause when trying to write about it. It was my first Greenwell and is supposed to be a sequel to his debut novel. The book is made up from 6 vignettes in the life of the nameless protagonist, an American teacher living in Sofia.

The prose is precise and draws you into the life, thoughts and feelings of this man, who seeks love and warmth and kinship and sex and power and ... goes through different experiences which make you sad, make you happy, make you frustrated or cuddly. The novel seems honest and is graphic at times.

I enjoyed it, though I had to take my time with it, savor the language and the emotions. Cleanness is not so much driven by the narrative, but by the questions of what it means to love and be loved, need and be needed, give and give up.