Clinical Intimacy

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Told through a dozen distinct voices circling around an elusive man known only as 'S' this is a book that asks if we are the story we tell about ourselves, or the tales others narrate 'A truly original literary mystery . . . A humane work that really seeks to understand... 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' Luke Kennard, author of The Transition --- 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.

Reviews

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, author of Julia *
A truly original literary mystery, and a bold meditation on care, judgement and exploitation . . . Like the best really serious novels, its 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, author of Notes on the Sonnets *
Arresting in its originality, Clinical Intimacy impels you through its pages in sheer curiosity as to what it will do next. Ewan Gass has achieved what all novelists ought to attempt: he has forged a whole new way of telling a story. * Rob Doyle, author of Autobibliography and Threshold *
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, author of Patience *
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, author of Virtuoso *
A challenging and intricate portrait of care's entanglements with compassion and control gripping, arresting work. * Jenn Ashworth, author of Ghosted *
Gasss kaleidoscope of voicesall aching for connectionexcavate the story of S in a way thats both stylistically innovative and disconcertingly familiar. By turns intricate, unsettling and tender, this is a novel of exquisite vulnerability that reveals something profound about what it means to tend to the needs of another. * Jane Flett, author of Freakslaw *
With an uncanny gift for finding the lyricism in everyday speech, Ewan Gass conjures a chorus of voices to tell a nuanced story of our alienating society and the technologies of connection that so often leave us more isolated than in the past. Clinical Intimacy carries us into a network of lives drawn together by a figure who is as haunting and mercurial as Highsmith's Ripley. * Patrick Flanery, author of Absolution *
With a form that nods back to Martin Crimps play 'Attempts on Her Life', Gass achieves something special with this book a moving, provocative and multifaceted portrait of the human desire to know the unknowable another human. Disturbing, haunting and full of insight. * Hannah Silva, author of My Child, the Algorithm *

Author Bio

Ewan Gass was born in Nottingham. When eight years old he stuck to his bedroom door a typewritten note outlining his desire to become a writer. He has worked as a journalist and teacher in Cambridge, London, Paris and New York. He now lives in Munich. His short story 'Questionnaire' was shortlisted for the White Review short story competition in 2020. Other work has appeared in 3-AM. Clinical Intimacy is his first novel.