Sex

Sex is woven throughout I Know This Much Is True, but rarely takes center stage. Narrator Dominick Birdsey grows up in the innocent 1950s and reaches puberty as the Beatles and free love arrive. He recalls one summer when his revulsion at the thought of his parents doing what the other boys say parents do evolves to reading whatever erotic literature he can find. His early involvement with females is strictly for sexual gratification; he wants no relationships. His best friend, Leo Blood, both as an adolescent and as a middle-aged man, boasts of his sexual prowess and nearly ruins his marriage by having extramarital affairs. Caught in one, he has to undergo therapy. When Dominick meets Dessa Constantine, she teaches him how to make love patiently and the couple enjoys free use of the Constantine mansion while the parents are in Greece. At one point, Dominick cannot...