This is a powerful and also profoundly disturbing book, a guy book about 4 male college friends, with a detailed (1352 pages in my digital library copy) account of their relationships with each other mostly: intense friendship and sometimes love. There are essentially no important relationships with women. At the core of the book is Jude, who undergoes horrific abuse as a child that will bring you to tears. Predictably, Jude suffers pronounced attachment disorder which makes his subsequent relationships with his friends very complicated. One of the brilliant features of this book is the ability to illustrate how someone who is very very intelligent can repeatedly engage in completely irrational behaviour: Jude knows this but can’t stop. This should produce a pause in those who think that abuse can be trivialized by “just get over it”. This is a tough read for emotional reasons but very worthwhile. This book is a Man Booker finalist.
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What David Read 