Muscle Man
The reader’s first impression is of an overwritten not-quite-rightness ... Castro is a beneficiary of what one might call normal privilege, as someone who does things millions of others do in a literary milieu where they are deemed exotic ... Muscle Man and its predecessor have the awkwardness of extended improvisations in the wrong key ... If Muscle Man was never going to be all things to all people, it might as well have been something to someone; instead, it thumbs its nose at wokeness while giving the right-curious too little to chew on, and spurns character development, the objective correlative, and anything else that might have made of it a novel with proper heft.
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Neither of Castro’s novels has much in the way of a plot; the narrative propulsion comes instead from his protagonists’ relentless internal chronicling ... Castro’s talent lies in meticulously creating a realistic—and entertaining—portrait of one man’s compulsions, bringing individual texture to a curious social phenomenon ... A lot of fun ... As Castro layers thoughts and reactions into a mesmerizing rhythm, Harold is made real.
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Perceptive ... Thrilling conclusions. The alienated protagonists must confront the outside world they’ve been avoiding.
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