Clinical Intimacy

S was a good person. Such a good person. They all told me that – so it had to be true.

S is unique. It seems that most people think so – his mother, his sister, his best friend, but relative strangers too. In fact, they and others all have much to say in the inquiry into S. When prompted, when the tape recorder in front of them clicks, a succession of family, friends and professional contacts in turn describe his shapeshifting charisma. All struggle to account for the enigmatic figure who has wandered through their lives, doing some good things – and some bad. Yet as they talk, it becomes apparent that they are not so much telling his story, as they are their own – of their common need for love, touch, retribution, closure. Together, their tissue of voices reveal the complexity of care.

In a series of intimate snapshots charting the relations of one ordinary yet extraordinary man, Clinical Intimacy explores the emotional conditions and moral consequences of a life lived in service of satisfying others.

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'What to say about this startlingly sophisticated debut other than I think you should read it? . . . A many-sided meditation on themes of sex and care, rife with pressing questions about the morality of fleshly wants and needs. Inventive, demanding and disturbing.' ― Daily Mail

'Clinical Intimacy is a fascinating exercise in understanding a life through the shadows it casts in other people's lives. It asks us whether great kindness can be a pathology, or if it is just pathologized by people to whom it is alien. Beautifully conceived and written, psychologically and politically acute, this is a debut of great breadth and power' ― Sandra Newman

'A truly original literary mystery, and a bold meditation on care, judgement and exploitation . . . Like the best really serious novels, it’s profoundly uncomfortable, avoids easy dramatic answers and forces you to really think and question – yourself as much as its own narrative. An unmissable debut.' ― Luke Kennard

'Voices — craving, guilty, disgusted, devoted — spin around a haunting question that we run after with every page. Through this sequence of testimonies, Gass has shown himself a master of delicate, gutting tragedy. An utterly intoxicating novel of human contradictions and secrecy that stays under the skin long after the last words.' ― Yelena Moskovich

'Intimate, intricate, emotional and gripping — like an analytic Cubist portrait of a mysterious and charismatic figure, S, who we get to know through fractured glimpses — Clinical Intimacy is one of the best first novels I've read in a long while.' — Toby Litt