What Belongs to You

by Garth Greenwell

Longlisted for the National Book Award in Fiction • A Finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction • A Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction • A Finalist for the James Taite Black Prize for Fiction • A Finalist the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • A Finalist for the Green Carnation Prize • A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A Los Angeles Times BestsellerNamed One of the Best Books of the Year by More Than Fifty Publications, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times (selected by Dwight Garner), GQ, The Washington Post, Esquire, NPR, Slate, Vulture, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Guardian (London), The Telegraph (London), The Evening Standard (London), The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Miami Herald, The Millions, BuzzFeed, The New Republic (Best Debuts of the Year), Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly (One of the Ten Best Books of the Year)"Garth Greenwell's What Belongs to You appeared in early 2016, and is a short first novel by a young writer; still, it was not easily surpassed by anything that appeared later in the year....It is not just first novelists who will be envious of Greenwell's achievement."—James Wood, The New YorkerOn an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months, drawn by hunger and loneliness and risk, and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he’s forced to grapple with his own fraught history, the world of his southern childhood where to be queer was to be a pariah. There are unnerving similarities between his past and the foreign country he finds himself in, a country whose geography and griefs he discovers as he learns more of Mitko’s own narrative, his private history of illness, exploitation, and want.What Belongs to You is a stunning debut novel of desire and its consequences. With lyric intensity and startling eroticism, Garth Greenwell has created an indelible story about the ways in which our pasts and cultures, our scars and shames can shape who we are and determine how we love.A conversation between Garth Greenwell and Hanya Yanagihara is included inside the e-book edition.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Queer, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Gay, Novels

201 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 19, 2016

About the author

Garth Greenwell is the author, most recently, of Small Rain, which won the 2025 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. His first novel, What Belongs to You, won the British Book Award for Debut of the Year, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and was a finalist for six other awards, including the PEN/Faulkner Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His second book of fiction, Cleanness, was a New York Times Notable Book. He is also the co-editor, with R.O. Kwon, of the bestselling anthology KINK: Stories. His short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, A Public Space, and VICE, and he has written criticism for The New Yorker, The Yale Review, and Harper’s, among others. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Harold D Vursell Memorial Award for prose style from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Iowa City and New York, where he is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU.

Reviews

[Kelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story cannot be fiction. If this is truly fiction, this author ranks among the best. There is too much here for it not to be based in truth. The story is so human. The writing is dense and rich, with long sentences (littered with punctuation) that demand to be read and re-read. Sentences masterfully crafted, each packed with information and emotion. There are no wasted lines. Skip just one and you will be clambering backwards trying to piece things together. Every chapter ends in a way that is either intentional or sheer magic...I will let you decide.
The narrator deftly describes every piece of himself, his surroundings, and this unique, surreal relationship built on foreign words that have more than one meaning, sustained by desire and mutual needs that couldn't be more different. This story epitomizes the viscosity that comes from a relationship that is impossible to clearly define. The author masterfully depicted the challenges of communicating in a foreign language when it comes to relationships. Regardless of skill level, there are nuances and mysteries that simply cannot be translated to the non-native speaker and coupling that with cultural differences, there is an enormous challenge presented in a perfect world. My heart broke for Mitko, this child of the post-Soviet era doing whatever it took to survive in a place no doubt unrecognizable even to him...but my heart also broke for our narrator and his scars that could not and will not heal. At the end I hung my head and cried right along with him. This book is quietly brilliant and difficult to forget. 5 stars.

[Adam Dalva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous, fascinating debut, which is made all the more remarkable in its links to Greenwell's CLEANNESS, out this week. The expository middle section, a lengthy paragraph ruminating on coming-of-age as gay in the American South, contrasts wonderfully with the Bulgarian liasons of the narrator and Mitko, a charismatic hustler on a downward track, that sandwich it. Recommended.

[Larry H · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some books dazzle you with plot twists and action, yet some books can truly wow you with the power of their storytelling, their language, and their imagery. Garth Greenwell's debut novel, What Belongs to You , definitely falls into the latter category. It's stunning, emotional, lyrical, and it quietly grabs you and doesn't let go.

One unseasonably warm afternoon in October, our narrator, an American teacher living in Bulgaria, goes to a restroom in Sofia's National Palace of Culture. This is a restroom where men go to have sexual encounters, and he is aware of this, but meeting Mitko, a young hustler, takes him by surprise. He pays Mitko for sex, and finds himself immensely drawn to him, so he returns to that restroom over and over. And although he knows inherently that Mitko is going through the motions with him as he probably does with his other "friends," he still hopes that he might find his way into Mitko's heart.

"...how helpless desire is outside its little theater of heat, how ridiculous it becomes the moment it isn't welcomed, even if that welcome is contrived."

He comes to terms with the fact that while Mitko may enjoy their encounters, ultimately Mitko sees him as a source for money, and there is a fine line between knowing you're being used and fearing you may be harmed as a result. As he tries to decide what to do with Mitko, an urgent message forces him to confront his own childhood, and the mistreatment and veiled disgust with which he was treated once he accepted his sexuality. He also tries to decipher the patterns in his behavior that has led him to the same situations time and time again.

"...always I feel an ambivalence that spurs me first in one direction and then another, a habit that has done much damage."

What Belongs to You is a novel about desire, and the desire to be wanted. It's about the struggle between following your heart and your libido instead of your head, and both the consequences and triumphs that come from doing so. It's also about how the hardest thing to do is reconcile your own issues with self-esteem, and finally realize only you can be responsible for your happiness and satisfaction.

Greenwell's talent is evident from the very first lines of this book, and his poetic use of language and storytelling ability sustains through the book's entirety. I truly cared about the narrator and worried what would become of him, hoping against hope that Greenwell wouldn't abandon the purity of his story for the sensational, and was so pleased he didn't. This is a beautiful, magnificent, deeply felt book, and I felt privileged to read it. I can't wait to see where Greenwell's career takes him—I know I'll be following.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

An American teacher in Bulgaria meets a charismatic young hustler, Mitko, in a public bathroom beneath Sofia's National Palace of Culture. He soon develops a heated, intimate relationship with Mitko, one built on desire and danger and fear. As our narrator struggles to navigate the fraught intensity he shares with Mitko, he re-encounters dark secrets from his southern childhood, memories that occupy him even when he lives a country away.

I wish I could agree with they hype on this one. I enjoyed some aspects of What Belongs to You: our narrator's difficult dance with culture and language, the ache of unfulfilled desire spanning familial and romantic relationships, and the underlying emphasis on the importance of how we choose to treat ourselves. Garth Greenwell writes with depth and eloquence. His sentences, while long, carried much meaning and style that only a few times turned prosaic.

But I fail to see what elevates this book above its peers. Nothing surprised me or really held my attention - not the typical story line about a gay man feeling unaccepted in his childhood, not the melodramatic, vacuous relationship between Mitko and our narrator, and not the plot's disjointed flow. I appreciated Greenwell's genuine attempt to capture angst and despair However, nothing about our narrator or his story told me anything new, nor did it re-envision any past plots in an innovative way.

A decent book that does not hold a candle to Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life . Several of my friends on Goodreads have lauded What Belongs to You, so perhaps consider their reviews for a second opinion.

[Richard Derus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 4* of five

The Publisher Says: On an unseasonably warm autumn day, an American teacher enters a public bathroom beneath Sofia’s National Palace of Culture. There he meets Mitko, a charismatic young hustler, and pays him for sex. He returns to Mitko again and again over the next few months, drawn by hunger and loneliness and risk, and finds himself ensnared in a relationship in which lust leads to mutual predation, and tenderness can transform into violence. As he struggles to reconcile his longing with the anguish it creates, he’s forced to grapple with his own fraught history, the world of his southern childhood where to be queer was to be a pariah. There are unnerving similarities between his past and the foreign country he finds himself in, a country whose geography and griefs he discovers as he learns more of Mitko’s own narrative, his private history of illness, exploitation, and want.

What Belongs to You is a stunning debut novel of desire and its consequences. With lyric intensity and startling eroticism, Garth Greenwell has created an indelible story about the ways in which our pasts and cultures, our scars and shames can shape who we are and determine how we love.

My Review: The sentences are lovely, the affect on me was about that of graphene aerogel. I am too old, I think, to find novelty in what seems to me a perfectly ordinary young gay man's exploration of being gay. He met his lust object in the bathroom! *gasp* He PAID him!! *clutching of pearls*

So what? Anybody out there read OUR LADY OF THE FLOWERS, QUERELLE, CORYDON? How about DANCER FROM THE DANCE, NOCTURNES FOR THE KING OF NAPLES? I read them all (and a boatload of Gordon Merrick's salacious sudsers) early enough in life so as not to be gobsmacked by these themes.

But this book is marketed to grown-ups, not teens, and stylistically it's a pretty arabesque, but so wispy and pale as to vanish up its own tailpipe (so to speak); I think it's a disservice to 17-year-olds not to let them read the ungraphic sex scenes and a disservice to experienced readers to call this pretty puff of smoke stunning, intense, or erotic (the publisher's copy says all three).

Four stars, all for handsomely carved phrases and beautiful descriptive scene-setting. But if you're over 35, maybe this should be a library borrow.

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update: I read this book awhile ago -- I'm happy to see it made the list of 2016 National Book Awards

"He only stood there an instant before he propelled himself forward and fell on top of me, and I must have flinched, I must have shut my eyes, so it wasn't a blow I felt on my face but his mouth, his tongue as it sought my own mouth, which I opened without thinking. I let him kiss me though it didn't seem like a kiss, his tongue in my mouth, it was an expression not of tenderness or desire but of violence, as was the weight with which he bore down on me, pinning me to the bed as he ground his chest and then his
crotch against me; and then he grabbed my own crotch with one hand, gripping it not
painfully but commandingly, and I thought whatever happens next I will let happen. But nothing happened next, he was on me, unbearably present, and then he sprang off the
bed and was gone, without taking anything or speaking another word, though of course he could've taken whatever he wanted."


"I had wanted to give without taking, but it must have been humiliating for him, not to have anything to bargain with, and I'm wondering now if I liked his humiliation, if that was the pleasure I took in my generosity, that I was humiliating him and giving him what he needed while claiming not to need anything back."

WOW.... Simply exquisite!!!!
The minute I finished the last sentence - I wanted to start from the beginning and read this again. The author ( debut?/!...can't be possible)....'masterfully' captures the 'internal' world from his two main characters. The realism is so intensely accurate, that
it hurts.

Explicit sex, gay sex, ( hunger, lust, longing), mystifying & perplexing...

[Kenny · Rating 5 out of 5]

He had always been alone, I thought, gazing at a world in which he had never found a place and that was now almost perfectly indifferent to him; he was incapable even of disturbing it, of making a sound it could be bothered to hear.
What Belongs to You ~~ Garth Greenwell



Regardless of what other reviewers may say, What Belongs to You is, at its core, a love story.

What Belongs to You is told from the point of view of a young American man who teaches at a university in Sofia, Bulgaria, and whose relationship with Mitko, a local hustler, is the backbone of the story. Garth Greenwell shows the differences in these two characters clearly and early on: the narrator is someone who understands the complexities of human relationships, even a relationship in its first few moments. While kissing Mitko for the first time, the narrator recognizes that Mitko is performing in some fashion, but then notes that there’s something theatrical in all of our embraces, I think, as we weigh our responses against those we perceive or project…We always desire too much or not enough and compensate accordingly.

From the first encounter with Mitko, betrayal is also part of what entices the narrator. After their first encounter ends too early for the narrator, and too early for what he has paid, he becomes angry. Betrayal is not merely a force that dissolves intimacy; in some ways, betrayal allows different intimacies. This push-pull of betrayal binds us to each other even as it threatens to damage us. And that threat builds through the novel as Mitko and the narrator become more intimate.



As Mitko’s betrayals increse, the worst moments come when Mitko uses language to hurt the narrator, as when Mitko relays the times he’s defended the narrator to his friends, but makes a point to say that they ask, Why are you hanging out with that faggot?” The narrator notes Mitko uses the word pederast,” because in Bulgaria it carries the connotation of abuse. Even though Mitko and the narrator sometimes struggle to communicate because they don’t share a native tongue, Mitko is still capable of using language as a weapon. He’s a character who, even though he has few other prospects for any work aside from hustling, wields both intimacy and betrayal as a way to draw the narrator closer, and thus to have some power in a situation where a different person might have little. This is a testament to the strength of Greenwell’s writing in that Mitko feels both threatening and threatened.

What Belongs to You is haunting and lyrical ~~ and, like the best writings of Woolf & Joyce, once you've finsihed What Belongs to You , will return to it again and again.

[William2 · Rating 5 out of 5]

What Belongs to You is a tragic story exquisitely told. We step backwards into the tale. First, we hear of the nameless young American, a teacher, who falls for a hustler in Sofia, Bulgaria, in the present day. Then we get the nameless young man’s backstory, his family dysfunction, a portrait of his horrible father and his extramarital affairs, the young man’s first love, coming to terms with his sexuality. Then we go back farther, back to the great-grandparents, and their loose daughter, the narrator’s grandmother, her many out-of-wedlock children, the family violence. This grandmother in her youth threw herself at bad trade with regularity, violent men. The reason she did so was to punish her father (the narrator’s great grandfather) for an act of violence so brazen that I was reminded of Joe Christmas killing his step-father on the dance floor in William Faulkner’s harrowing Light in August. Mitko is the name of the uneducated hustler here who breaks our narrator’s heart. I can't think of a debut this exciting since Dale Peck’s Martin and John, which, ironically, is about a hustler falling for a plague-stricken client in 1980s New York. Part III, about which I’ll say nothing, returns to present-day Sofia. A dark story, not for the faint of heart, deeply moving.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been reading Rilke's On Love and Other Difficulties and find myself gasping in recognition at his discourse on the nature of love, lust, desire, and how we, the primal creatures that we are, seek to weave all these together into something that resembles a relationship.

At bottom, no one in life can help anyone else in life; this one experiences over and over in every conflict and every perplexity: that one is alone.

And never is one more alone than in the throes of helpless sexual desire–so often confused with love-for someone who cannot, will not, love you in return.

An American teacher, newly arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria, meets a broad-shouldered, soft-lipped hustler in the bathroom of the National Palace of Culture and after one intense encounter, spirals into a years'-long obsession that takes shape in series of bleak, psychologically dense and disturbing vignettes.

The American narrator, recounting his story in somber, rueful first person, remains unnamed, but the Bulgarian, in all his pathetic, sensual allure, is known simply as Mitko. Even as the narrator recognizes the impending disaster that he invites in by allowing Mitko access to his body, his heart, his life, desire overcomes reason. The result is hard to read and impossible to look away from.

What Belongs To You is a profound psychological expedition, rendered by a curiously-detached narrator. But stay with this short, brutally intense novel and you will understand this man's need to hold himself at arm's length. His past rises to the surface like a corpse in a swamp thick with sludge and you will understand the self-loathing that makes a man run headlong into more humiliation. Wound upon wound to forget to the pain before.

Greenwell's style is classic, unhurried, rich—a Proustian exploration of the soul. His sentences, some running on in thick blocks broken by the occasional semicolon, are the very antithesis of snappy, ironic prose that seems to be the darling of contemporary literary fiction. The lush styling allows room for the soul to expand, for eroticism to blossom, for the morass of human behavior to suck the reader in and hold her fast.

The narrator tells us, when explaining his inability to become whole:

I know they’re all I have . . . these partial selves, true and false at once, that any ideal of wholeness I long for is a sham.

It's just as Rilke said: in every conflict and every perplexity . . one is alone.

[Meike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Garth Greenwell is a true master when it comes to conveying ambiguous feelings, doubts and insecurities - he finds such nuanced words and intricate images to describe emotional complexity, it's simply awe-inspring: This, ladies and gentlemen, is ART. In his debut novel, Greenwell tells the story of an unnamed American who works as an English teacher at a prestigious school in Sofia, Bulgaria. In a cruising bathroom, this teacher meets Mitko, a poor young man prostituting himself, and has sex with him. Afterwards, they meet again and again, and a difficult relationship unfolds: Yes, the teacher is smitten with Mitko, but their relationship is transactional, and Mitko is homeless and an alcoholic. Due to the circumstances, they cannot see eye to eye - it never becomes entirely clear whether Mitko would spend time with the teacher if he didn't have to sell himself for money.

This shaky power imbalance (the teacher has the money, but Mitko is the one desired by the teacher) becomes more and more unbearable, until the teacher tells Mitko that he does not want to see him again - cut to part 2 of the narrative. Here, Greenwell elaborates on the parallels between the teacher's youth in Kentucky and the situation of queer people in Bulgaria, illumanting that in both cases, queer people are/were taught that their lives have no dignity, no meaning, and how that affects whole lives. Btw: Greenwell himself was born in Kentucky and worked as a school teacher in, you guessed it, Bulgaria.

While the teacher as an American has the means and opportunities to take control of his life, Mitko is trapped and has to deal with social and economic circumstances that aim to render him as a queer person with no financial means invisible. This is the topic of part 3 of the novel, where Mitko and the teacher meet again (plus we encounter R., who will play a central role in Greenwell's next book, Cleanness).

The focus of Greenwell's novel makes all the difference: Not the narrator, the (for Bulgarian standards) wealthy American, is the central character, but Mitko, the only person in the whole text who has a full name. Mitko remains somewhat mysterious - the reader's perspective is limited to that of the teacher, who is well-meaning and intelligent, but, at the end of the day, a Westerner who only has an abstract idea of the hardships of Mitko's life. This doesn't mean though that Mitko is only "a victim" - yes, he is unjustly deprived of chances, but Greenwell does not employ him simply to make a point; rather, he shows him as three-dimensional person, he grants him the dignity his society tries to deny him by making his life and his destiny count.

This is a highly impressive, poetic book written by an author who has a keen eye for human behavior. Now I'm a little mad that I already had to privilege to read an ARC of Cleanness, because I wish I could read it again for the first time. Oh well, let's just hope Greenwell is aiming for a trilogy!

[Sketchbook · Rating 2 out of 5]

In early American lit, sensitive US chaps went to Europe and learned about "life" from older women, like Chad and Mme de Vionnet in The Ambassadors (a great role for Jeanne Moreau). In 21st Century lit, sensitive gay American men in Europe are learning bittersweet facts from rent boys in the Balkans. This is what happens in The Romanians by Bruce Benderson, and it happens here in a highly praised novel by Garth Greenwell, now the It Boy of "gay writers." (We can be thankful that Edmund White has been sidelined. He name-drops while recycling the same dreary plots).

Greenwell writes of sexual obsession, as MOM did with Philip and Mildred. Now they were a helluva couple! Wayward love, especially for a pross de toot, is a popular literary theme, and oh so romantic, especially since writers today can tweak the tale with hardcore erotica. New ground isnt broken, and critics show their liberality w lavish burble. (Dont Americans look at churches and visit museums in Europe anymore? Well, face the facts: many seek sex--).

Half-way, the American contracts syphillis from his bad sweetie and a hefty chunk of the book is about getting a cure. There's no penicillen in Bulgaria, or something like that. (An overnight flight to Paris or London is not considered). None of this moved me. I kept thinking, "Why do the wrong people always travel?"

[Henk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The inequality following from someone’s place of birth (Bulgaria) trumping the inequality following from what someone is (the narrator growing up gay in rural America). A thought provoking book on power struggles in relations
Always we desire too much or not enough and compensate accordingly

In What Belongs to You a tale of an expat English teacher meeting a man at the urinals is told. As can be expected their relationship is not equal nor very smooth.
From earliest scenes, with Mitko faking an orgasm (was rather intrigued how that would work in practicality).

Garth Greenwell his writing is rather reflective, a lot is projected on Mitko, with conversations being one-sided due to the narrator not being fluent in Bulgarian
A feeling of sordidness, and sadness, pervades their encounters.
As the writer calls it: Attempts at beauty or at least care are attempted between the two main characters, but they stay in the attempt sphere, with their lives being far apart from each other.
Lack of empathy for the street living Mitko, without prospects and being exploited by men, is even something I started to feel against the narrator.

The struggle for power in relationships is very much the heart of this section of the book, with the threat of violence, cutting each other of, and the difference in means and possibilities being portrayed in a well done manner by the author.

Part 2 of the book, on the narrator growth up in an abusive family, is gut wrenching, and in my view maybe this should have been part 1 to open up the book and better understand the protagonist.

Gay shame versus a father and the cruelness of kids, combined with sexual awakening, in a cocktail of exclusion and desire, definitely says a lot on how the adult narrator turned out to be the way he is in Sofia. The first love conundrum, and the riple impact it has on one’s life is tenderly described, as is the mental impact of being thrown out of the house before the age of 18

The horse at the end and the child clinging to his parents who reject him is very poignant.

Part 3 had me think of this quote, apparently from The Perks of Being a Wallflower: We accept the love we think we deserve
I have a low tolerance for characters recognizing the error in their choice but going on with those choices anyway. Especially the narrator thinking: I had been generous too, I hadn’t got back anything in return is rather jarring, even though it might be emotionally true to a certain degree.

The fear of false motives is paralysing and poisoning at the same time, captured in a sentence like: I understand you but you don’t understand me
There is also a huge inequality of consequences, from an antibiotic cure and some shame to demise.
What would it mean to do enough? is something thought at the end of the book, and I don't feel the narrator did enough, even with his efforts in understanding Bulgarian he is a deeply privileged person who basically sticks to an observing role. This might be understandable from Part 2 of the book, but still made me feel uneasy about the ethics of the book and the exploitative relation Westerners have to locals. A debut with many layers and interesting questions, while triggering real emotion along the way: I will read more from Greenwell!

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

“What Belongs to You” whispers like an incantation of desire. But even as Garth Greenwell’s novel sweats with lust, his prose keeps that heat contained in the crucible of remorse.

Although this is a debut novel, expectations have been running high. “What Belongs to You” grew from a lauded novella called “Mitko.” And Greenwell’s literary criticism in the New Yorker and the Atlantic demonstrates an usually keen and insightful mind. That promise is fully realized here in the dark magic of these pages.

The action, restrained as it is, takes place in. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Lee Klein · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second section (of three) is so flowing and affecting. It seemed like it was written all in one sitting from experience. I found myself comparing this to a contemporary Proust, imagining how In Search of Lost Time would read if Albertine and associates were presented as Albert et al., like Proust without the heteronormative mask. The second section tracks the narrator's emerging awareness of his sexuality and then his first forays into the related experiences, both of which are wonderfully done, one fifty-page paragraph that seems expelled in a single long exhalation, and ends with a scene that perfectly exemplifies "poignancy," urgent longing simultaneously rejected: "the combination of exclusion and desire I felt in his room, beneath the pain of exclusion the satisfaction of desire; sometimes I think it's the only thing I've sought." I won't give the scene away, but at the time I was thinking it was a perfect dramatization of that feeling, and as such the feeling conveys, as well as when he essentially comes out to his unwoke father. The third section, which returns to the present a while after the scenes in the first section, seemed comparatively rushed and unreal, as though they were written less from experience than to conclude the first two sections. The writing seemed less effortlessly raptuous and more often unnecessarily described the cityscape of Sofia. Interesting that his openness about his sexuality ultimately saves him from what years ago would have ended in blackmail. Loved how the momentum building toward that was undermined by the narrator's acknowledgment that of course everyone knew who he was, something that hurt him at first with his family and friend but in the end quietly comes to his rescue in a way. Reminded me somewhat of Ben Lerner's Leaving the Atocha Station, with the intelligent, American, sensitive poet fellow in Europe -- the narrator in this experiences an earthquake instead of a terrorist event. Both writers also share an agent with Hanya Yanagihara, although like A Little Life this could also be reduced to a "gay novel" (groping in bathrooms!) most other comparisons would seem like a stretch. In general, a great short novel that feels real, seems written with the combination of talent and attention that makes the language seem effortless yet never easy, and for the most part effectively conveys affect (ie, it's moving). The last section didn't seem to live up to the first two sections, but the middle section secures this for me as a contemporary favorite.

[Michael Flick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m not quite sure what this is--perhaps a thesaurus masquerading as a novel, perhaps a Southern Gothic without the South, perhaps a Victorian novel revenant. Perhaps a mere wallow in shame, punishment, and disgust. A callow, conflicted gay man catches syphilis from a Bulgarian rent boy; melodrama precedes and ensues. The thin plot can’t sustain the verbiage, it collapses under the burden of words. Overwritten, drones on and on. And on. And on. Repetitive, redundant, says the same thing over and over again. And over again. And that’s just in each sentence. An avalanche of words, superfluous words, a cacophony. Random examples:

“The students perked up at her knock, not that they had been to that point bored exactly, but any interruption is welcome, and especially when it suggests some hidden drama, as when this woman, whom I considered almost a friend, who had always been kind to me and who surely thought she was doing me a kindness now, walked quickly but with a subdued manner to deliver me what she held.” [61]

"This was reality, I felt with a strange relief, this was where I belonged, and I thought of R., though it shames me to recall it, as though our life together, open and sunlit and lasting, were entirely without substance; I felt it disappear, simply disappear, like a flammable shadow, and part of me was glad to feel it go." [133]

“When my mother first arrived, I was shocked by how drawn and worn her face was, how thin and fragile-seeming her frame. She was unquestionably old now, as she hadn’t been before, and I saw this with a pang as she stepped through the glass doors at the airport’s new terminal, a pang I felt again as we settled in our seats on the train, arranging our bags in the unclaimed space between us.” [158]

One of my favorites, in the extended prattle on the sacramental banana: “But then his voice softened, as it had before, I understand you, he said, but you don’t understand me, and he looked at me again with such sadness that I did eat, finally taking the gift he had offered, though I could barely swallow, my gorge rose at the sweetness of it.” [183-184]

Well, he does opine “the best of me was words.” [76] I’d have to differ with him on that.

Reading this, I repeatedly had the discomforting thought that my attention had wandered and I was rereading what I had just read. But no: that’s just the verbal redundancy in play here.

This might have made a passably tolerable short story. But probably not. My gorge rose at the pathos. Or maybe that was bathos.

[ReadAlongWithSue recovering from a stroke★⋆. ࿐࿔ · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an amazing read this was. I can’t believe it’s a debut. It’s perfection is beyond as it’s written so well, I pounced on every word, I followed every line and action, sometimes gasping and sometimes holding my breath.

This is a romance, a gay romance.

But beware it sometimes leaves you enstranged.

It’s relationships, it’s sex and it’s sometimes mystical eroticism.

Beautifully written.

[Maxwell · Rating 3 out of 5]

That's all care is, I thought, it's just looking at a thing long enough, why should it be a question of scale? This seemed like a hopeful thought at first, but then it's hard to look at things, or to look at them truly, and we can't look at many at once, and it's so easy to look away.

Garth Greenwell's debut novel, What Belongs to You, is told through three novellas, of sorts: Mitko, A Grave, and Pox. Each told from the perspective of our unnamed narrator, an American professor teaching abroad in Bulgaria, unpacks his identity in interesting ways—it particularly examines his sexuality through the lens of his relationship to a male prostitute named Mitko, while also diving into his childhood and relationships to his mother & father.

Each part could easily stand alone as its own story; in fact the opening section titled "Mitko" was originally released as its own novella to some acclaim. I think, however, the three stories, though individually good, don't fit well together. It felt very forced, as if after the success of "Mitko" Greenwell felt pressured to turn that story into something more. While I particularly loved "A Grave," it felt oddly juxtaposed to the sections before and after it that had more cohesiveness.

Greenwell's writing is excellent. He has incredible observations and the ability to convey a feeling through the eyes of our narrator in a very relatable way; whether that's through a surfaced memory or from something he sees—like a child laughing or a woman on a bus—the images are described as though you have seen exactly what our main character sees, not merely as words on a page. It's always accessible and easy to read but doesn't lack depth. I would certainly read more from Greenwell, but I don't think this collection of stories truly works as a 'novel.' 3.5 stars

[Lucy Dacus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely stunning, almost uncomfortably stunning. At times brutal, then gentle. Always poetic.

[Lyn❤Loves❤Listening to Real Voices Only!!!!❤️🎧📚 Addict ON HIATUS · Rating 4 out of 5]

Audio 5 Stars
Story 3.5 Stars

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

The beautiful, first-person prose of this slim novel drives the narrative, though 'story' is not its focus. The introspective narrator is ambivalent, sees both sides of everything; and whether that's to his benefit or detriment is undecided.

Perhaps the reader is not as much of an outsider as the narrator, a gay American male working in Bulgaria; but the lyrical exploration of his aloneness makes even his obsessive nature relatable.

In an odd way, I was reminded of my recent read of My Sunshine Away.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

I started this book during my reading slump and I put it aside. I realized that this book required more care than I was able to give it. I came back to it as soon as my slump ended and I'm glad I waited.

I am not always a fan of slim books of lyrical prose and deep emotions. If that is not normally your bag, I understand why you may avoid this title. You shouldn't. Yes, it is full of lyrical prose. Greenwell is a poet and you feel that delicacy and deliberateness in his language. But he also brings a raw vulnerability and openness that is truly rare.

How easily do we discuss our shame? We may show our scars, but how often do we discuss what those wounds looked like when they were first inflicted? The unnamed narrator here, an American teacher living in Bulgaria, knows shame and regret and all the complex emotions that surround them. The book loosely follows his relationship with a hustler, but this is not a prostitute-with-a-heart-of-gold book, it is not a book about a sex worker who opens someone's eyes with their deep wisdom. It's sadly unusual to have a novel about a modern, out, openly gay man. And while we like to think we live in an enlightened society, there is still so much to explore.

A beautiful book, it's already been much discussed in the book world (though I see very few of YOU have read it) and expect to see it on many best-of lists this year (including probably mine).

[Garrard Conley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Currently reading it a second time. No one has prettier sentences. The subject matter is important, and the sentences give it a dignity you cannot dismiss (even if you wanted to). I can't wait to buy the hardcover version!

[Liz · Rating 4 out of 5]

On some level I felt this story to be about loving that elusive someone who will never love you back. Glimpses into the narrator’s past support this idea that he associates desire with pain. Attraction with shame.

"I’ve sought it ever since, I think, the combination of exclusion and desire I felt in his room, beneath the pain of exclusion the satisfaction of desire; sometimes I think it’s the only thing I’ve sought."

It’s no wonder he feels so strongly for Mitko, who never surprises him and is always on the lookout for what he can take, who he can use. His feelings for Mitko are, if not love then close enough to be confused with it, and he is repeatedly drawn back. I think that Mitko realizes this as well because when the tables turn it is dear Narrator to whom he returns again and again. FYI, we never learn the narrator’s name.

Garth Greenwell has come out of the gate with a style all his own. Even though it amounts to just under 200 pages, it’s not a quick and easy read. I had to revisit more than a few of the extremely long sentences that are arranged into page-spanning paragraphs. The reward was more than worth it. I'll be thinking about this book for a while.

[GTF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Garth Greenwell's 'What Belongs to You' succeeds in being a sensational and erotic tale of love and attraction. The novel puts forward a good portrayal of unhealthy relationships, and it deserves credit for its depiction of the inevitable downfall caused by living fast and rough for too long. While this book has its strengths, it is lacking in some things that readers may look for in a novel.

The main character has a somewhat limited range of emotion and awareness. While his naiveté in falling for a sex worker is not by any means unacceptable for a fictional story, his shame and guilt do not resonate deeply due to his lack of inner conflict - something that should be caused by such feelings. He seems to cope relatively fine with being an educational professional who is sleeping around with a wayward, untrustworthy down-and-out. In addition, his narration lacks critical thinking of the world around him, and it doesn't show much of the struggle that can come with day-to-day life.

The pacing and structure of this book are also things could have been better. Instead of the protagonist's childhood memories being woven throughout the novel, the main story is suspended for a very long winded account of his early life. The author eventually returns to the main plotline but with disruption caused to the novel's flow.

Nonetheless, 'What Belongs to You' is still a relatively worthy read.

[N · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the saying, "it's always the same old love story", this book definitely is, but though it ventures into the familiar landscapes of quintessential gay fiction, it's a stunning and sad novel nonetheless of obsessive unrequited love, desire and the need to escape from an abusive familial relationship that's old as time.

Our unnamed narrator has left behind his droll and cruel childhood in 1990s Kentucky where his father and stepmother has rejected him because of his sexuality, and has found himself years later teaching in Sofia, Bulgaria.

There he falls obsessively in love with the mysterious Mitko, a hustler who suffers from STDs, the need for material objects, and a swagger that might foreshadow his undoing.

The narrator and Mitko's story begins in the stunning first part of the narrative, to more predictable landscapes of his failed relationship with his father and former best friend back in Kentucky and eventually Michigan.

For me the scenes of where the narrator and his father bond over the intimacy of bathing each other is a moment of connection that will forever be missed.

Like "A Little Life" this novel is definitely one of the most unhappy I've read, but unlike that novel's relentless drive and willfully forcing the reader into human nature's cruelest moments, this one is more reminiscent of poetry, and our obsessive dreams.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book reads like Proust: a spellbinding remembrance of an encounter and its consequences. With little dialogue (and not a word wasted), it seems Greenwell presents to us his personal, hauntingly beautiful, diary. This is a powerful story that I will revisit and relive.

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel was paired with Black Deutschland: A Novel in a New Yorker review, here:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/201...

Fair enough since both are about gay expatriate men looking for love in Europe, and both published by FSG...but where Black Deutschland opened me to a new world and new thoughts, What Belongs to You closed me, and left me feeling cramped and confined by its level of introspection, by its air of regret and loss. It's a truly claustrophobic story, from the first cramped scene set in a men's public restroom. It mixes the promise of love with mythology/reality about disease and power imbalance and violence. It's tremendously well-written; it's fiction that is truthful in the best sense; but it was just too airless for me.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book could be easily put to the stage (OK, a liberal stage), as Greenwell paints every scene before diving into the inevitable return of Mitko (in person, or in thought). This book does not feel like fiction - the story sounds far too real. The subtleties of the Bulgarian language (formal vs informal) grace most pages and add greatly to the understanding of the tone of each conversation. It is these very small things that I loved so much about reading this book.

The book's opening chapter is strong enough that I'm not sure how I found this book on the shelves of my public library. (This might be tough 'on stage'). But these scenes do not dominate the narrative. The unnamed teacher has stories of his childhood in the book that tell us of his earliest desire for boys his age, and the serious parental, step-parental, and parents-of-parents problems that formed him. He is openly gay to his school and students in a country where this is done in secret. His openness to himself lets his desires always crumble, with the best intentions, when Mitko comes to buzz the door and and then work his charm. There truly was no remedy.

It is the simple plot of this book that works its magic in me, personally. The ending is perfectly matched to this story.


I started reading the book, and looked up a few quotes on Goodreads. They sounded good, but did not leap out at me. Once I now KNOW where these quotes occur in the book, I get so much more emotional when I read them. My favorites:

“Sometimes we talked the whole night long, as one does only in adolescence or very early in love. I was happy, but also I felt an anxiety that gnawed at me and for which I could find no cause, that gnawed at me more deeply precisely because I could find no cause.”

“K. hung his arm around my neck. It was a casual gesture but one I wasn’t used to, and I was almost frightened by the happiness that overtook me, that filled me up and charged me and at the same time carried a thread; it was too unrestrained, there was nothing to keep it in check. I felt solid again as I walked with him, more certain of myself than I had been for years, with his arm around my neck and my own slung at his waist We knocked against each other but what did it matter, there was no one to see us, we moved with an awkward freedom but a freedom nonetheless.”

"Maybe they were a mistake, my years in this country, maybe the illness I had caught was just a confirmation of it. What had I done but extend my rootlessness, the series of fall starts that became more difficult to defend as I got older? I think I hoped I would feel new in a new country, but I wasn’t new here, and if there was comfort in the idea that my have the troll I niece had a cause, that if I was ill-fitted to the place there was good reason, it was a false comfort, a way of running away from real remedy. But then I didn’t truly believe there was a remedy, I thought as I stepped down from the platform into the snow, walking into the boulevard, and how I could regret the choices that had brought me, by whatever path, to R., any more than I could regret those that had led to Mitko and to moments that flared in my memory, that I knew I would cherish whatever their consequences."

“Making poems was a way of loving things, I had always thought, of preserving them, of living moments twice; or more than that, it was a way of living more fully, of bestowing on experience a richer meaning."

“He had always been alone, I thought, gazing at a world in which he had never found a place and that was now almost perfectly indifferent to him; he was incapable even of disturbing it, of making a sound it could be bothered to hear.”

“Love isn’t just a matter of looking at someone, I think now, but also of looking with them, of facing what they face.”

[Габриела Манова · Rating 4 out of 5]

Първите 20–30 страници от книгата прочетох едва ли не с нежелание и неприязън, все едно някой насила ме бе накарал да я чета.
Няколко човека ме питаха как е – тежка е, мрачна е.
В един момент обаче усетих, че историята ми върви изключително плавно – четях жадно и неумолимо, както все по-рядко ми се случва, Гарт Грийнуел има прекрасен, плътен, бавен, описателен език. Не се разпилява твърде, ала дискретното му отбелязване на разни детайли за България, която, погледната през неговите очи, беше пълнокръвен герой в повествованието, са ключови. И ценни.
Няма какво да коментирам сюжета, сигурно вече знаете за какво се разказва. Това, което за мен бе важно в тази книга, бе Митко и неговата неспособност да се справи със себе си и света.
Да, образът на героя с проблем искам-и-не-мога е стар и изтъркан – като едни червени гуменки, дето нося от осми клас; но тук образът на деструктивния тип е структуриран точно както го познавам лично аз, точно както съм се сблъсквала с него лично аз, точно както съм била наранявана от бездействието му лично аз. И не знам доколко народопсихологията има пръст тук, но, бога ми, простете, не съм уверена, че българин щеше да го опише по-добре.
Митко ми напомняше за хора, които съм срещала, хора, които са огромна част от живота ми, чийто основен рефрен е (бил) обещания, които никога не се изпълняват, надежди за по-добро, които се провалят от самоиндуцираната им разрушителност, от неспирния им гняв и ропот (срещу някакво невидимо зло). Страхливост и егоизъм. Не съжалявам, че звучи категорично, тези думи са еманация на този тип поведение. Преди години може би бих съжалила Митко. Може би бих му подала ръка.
Вече съм научила (колкото и рано да ми е, колкото и самонадеяно да звучи с двайсетте и една ми години), че на човек трябва да даваш толкова, колкото е готов да понесе.
Не можем да спасим никого, не и като самоцел, не и без съдействие, не и без желание от другата страна.

Какво ли би означавало да направиш достатъчно за някого, зачудих се, както и преди се бях чудил за онова задължение, което имаме към другите и което понякога изглежда толкова ясно, а понякога изчезва изцяло, така че понякога не дължим нищо (...)

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So much of the greatest literature is made up of characters undone by desire. Most of it romantic and sexual. Desire that remains hidden or is revealed or explodes, that creates enlivening passion and that ultimately takes characters somewhere new or destroys them. Like in life, characters can be suddenly toppled by desire which can seemingly come out of nowhere and leaves them hanging upon a cliff edge. “What Belongs to You” is a love story about a man undone. But, more than that, it’s an ingenious exploration of the way desire causes seismic changes to our ever-evolving sense of identity. It shows how through desire a man is made to confront his past and decide how to carry on in the future. It asks how much of our relationships are based upon an exchange – emotional or monetary. It does all this through the engaging, sympathetic voice of an American expat living and teaching in Bulgaria and a rent boy he meets named Mitko. What on the surface appears like a simple story weaves into avenues of obsession, deep reflection and confrontations with stark reality. It’s an utterly arresting and deeply contemplative novel. It reads like the most intimate confession from a soul who has spent his life in hiding.

Read my full review on
LonesomeReader review of What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell