About ⅓ of the way in, I thought, somewhat heartlessly (I know, I know), “Imagine taking a drink every time Jude says ‘I’m sorry. There is real pleasure in following characters over such a long period, as they react to setbacks and successes, and, in some cases, change.

There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel Brooklyn-born painter seeking entry to the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their center of gravity. Some of the technologies we use are necessary for critical functions like security and site integrity, account authentication, security and privacy preferences, internal site usage and maintenance data, and to make the site work correctly for browsing and transactions.

The _ga cookie, installed by Google Analytics, calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. Malcolm’s sister, Flora, who was three years older than him, had moved out of the basement apartment recently, and Jude had taken her place as a short-term solution: Eventually, Malcolm’s parents would want to reclaim the unit to convert it into offices for his mother’s literary agency, which meant Jude (who was finding the flight of stairs that led down to it too difficult to navigate anyway) had to look for his own apartment. How often is a novel so deeply disturbing that you might find yourself weeping, and yet so revelatory about human kindness that you might also feel touched by grace?

Yet their greatest challenge is Jude himself, whose secrets – and shame – define not just his own life, but that of his friends as well. This is a book that gets under your skin in a million little ways; a book that demands to be read; a book which you simply have to keep reading, and even when you stop to do something else, is there in your mind, the. This was a strategic job for him; his plan, as he’d explained to Willem one night, was that he’d try to befriend one of the editors there and then convince him to feature him in the magazine. I can only think the sun and bushfire smoke must have affected my brain, because it must have pushed my luggage allowance close to the limit. JB lived in a massive, filthy loft in Little Italy, full of strange hallways that led to unused, oddly shaped cul-de-sacs and unfinished half rooms, the Sheetrock abandoned mid-construction, which belonged to another person they knew from college.

Edgewear, corner bumped, small sliver of navy colour transfer at top edge of front endpapers and for a handful of pages thereafter; contents clean. He often forgot what he considered inconsequential details, but he also never seemed to mind when people grew impatient with him for forgetting. He's that terrified child we all carry around inside ourselves, saying we're no good, we're not attractive, we're not worthy of love.