Autobiography of my body Book

I really liked the honesty of this book, especially since Americans are so taboo with sexual issues and sex is a part of life and an incredibly important part of relationships that often gets skipped in literature or made profane, graphic, and porn-like just for sensationalism; however, Guy does not use it that way. He uses it naturally and allows us to see all aspects of Charles and what makes him tick as he tries to come to terms with his body, self, family, and the women in his life.

Guy explores the physical in connection with the psychological and spiritual in a way many novelists shy away from and his prose is magnificently suited to these topics. I personally am not a fan of certain words used to describe sex acts and body parts and he uses these quite a bit; however, that's the way certain people talk and think and Charles and his contemporaries are people who speak like that. His writing is stellar and he takes on complex issues with such grace and tolerance.

He examines, in depth, the ambiguity of people and their behaviors. Even though his characters do stupid, unethical, or immoral things you still have empathy for them. He allows Charles to develop through all of his relationships- self, parents, siblings, his women...

His narrative is compelling and descriptive and maybe I'm biased because I know Pittsburgh and I know the character of Pittsburgh at the time the novel was set and he did a bang up job of bringing that city to life.

I look forward to reading more of his novels.

The writing is superb. It's a stupid reason not to give it five stars but the reason I didn't is because of the typset. It just really annoyed me and detracted from the flow of reading.