Writing about sex is a particular skill of July's - it is beautiful but real, not rapturous or misty or scene-lit. This cataloging of unglamorous inner life could be grotesque (and sometimes is) but there is something hugely generous about it. To see these everyday - yet deeply private - moments given serious artistic treatment is elating, like looking at a painting in a museum and recognizing your own toes in it. July is a master of the intimate weirdnesses of human thought that are both deeply specific and yet totally recognizable. Few novels I can think of have such perfect descriptions of self-observation. Like most really good books, The First Bad Man is summary-averse: It defies the demands of jacket copy, and the joy of reading it comes from seeing the odd, musty, intimate corners of a person's inner life treated with immense gravity and care.
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