I’m glad I read some other Baker books before I got to this one, a cast-off from someone else that wound up on my “to read” shelf. Baker’s attention to detail is what makes me like his more convetional writing, however this level of detail brought to sex fantasies and deconstructing the minutae of desire and attraction verges on the pathological. Or perhaps that’s the point... I didn’t like either of these characters or their awkward attempts to understand each other well enough so that could have a mutually satisfying orgasm together over the phone. I found them weird and uptight and disliked their usage of odd euphemisms for sex terms [the male character always says “frans” instead of 'breasts" every time he does this I think "oh god, what a dork!"]. The book was well written however, but now every time I think of Baker I’m going to wonder if any part of this masturbating male character and his obsession with pulling his genitalia through one leg hole of his underpants is in any way auto-biographical.