What Belongs to You

American author and poet Garth Greenwell’s novel What Belongs to You (2016) tells the story of a young American gay man teaching in Sofia, Bulgaria. According to Publishers Weekly, What Belongs to You is "a great tragedy" and "the first great novel of 2016."

The book is divided into three parts. In Part I, "Mitko," the unnamed narrator is a young American gay man teaching in Sofia, Bulgaria. The reader first meets the narrator in the public restroom of Sofia's National Palace of Culture where Mitko, a 23-year-old hustler, offers to have sex with him for money. Although the narrator is reluctant at first, he eventually agrees to pay Mitko to allow him to give the hustler oral sex. The narrator describes Mitko as tight-bodied and athletic with an obsessive need for cleanliness. Despite the fact that Mitko seems to the narrator to be extraordinarily clean already, the hustler insists on washing his penis before allowing the narrator to come into contact with it.

Although the narrator knows that his relationship with Mitko is purely transactional, he cannot help feeling a great deal of affection for the hustler. His attraction goes beyond the physical, as the narrator wishes to save Mitko from a dangerous and depraved life of prostitution. Despite this tendency to view Mitko as a victim, there is also an element of possessiveness and jealousy in the narrator's obsessive need to know how many clients Mitko services on a given day. For Mitko's part, he, too, is confused about the nature of his relationship with the narrator. He begins to feel affection for the narrator that goes beyond the transactional nature of their first encounter, owing to how well the narrator treats him and the level of attention he pays to the hustler. When they are together, the narrator feeds Mitko well and offers him his warm bed whenever Mitko needs it.



At the end of Part I, the narrator and Mitko visit the hustler's hometown of Varna. The narrator books a hotel room for the two of them, tacitly expecting sexual gratification from Mitko in return. However, because of the unclear boundaries and nature of their relationship, Mitko doesn't realize what the narrator expects of him. When the narrator becomes visibly annoyed that Mitko isn't participating in the trip as expected, Mitko becomes angry and verbally attacks the narrator. The verbal fight escalates, climaxing when Mitko strikes the narrator in the face. This ends any relationship between them, transactional or otherwise.

In Part II, "Grave," the narrator learns that his estranged father is on his deathbed and wants to see his son before he dies. This discovery sends the narrator into something of an emotional tailspin as he wanders the streets of Sofia in a daze, haunted by flashbacks of his painful childhood. As a young child, the narrator is close to his father, despite his father's frequent absences on business trips. This closeness ends one day when, while showering with his father, the young narrator has an erection at the sight of his father's naked body. His father recoils from the narrator's touch, and the narrator believes from that day forward that his father hates him.

Sometime after this incident, the narrator becomes close friends with another boy, K. One night during a sleepover, K. invites the narrator to touch and explore his body. The next morning, K. leaves abruptly. The next time he sees K., the boy locks the narrator in a room where he is forced to watch K's new girlfriend give him oral sex. All the while, the father's suspicion about the narrator's sexuality grows to the point where he disowns the narrator, calling him a "f*****." In the present, the narrator struggles to get on a plane to see his dying father.



In Part III, "Pox," Mitko shows up unannounced at the narrator's home. The narrator hasn't seen Mitko since their fight in Verna, and the hustler looks run-down and emaciated. Revealing that he has syphilis, Mitko suggests that the narrator likely has the sexually transmitted infection as well. From that point forward, the narrator has no sexual interest in Mitko. After confirming his diagnosis at two public health clinics, the narrator informs his new partner, R., of his infection. The narrator feels an extraordinary amount of resentment toward Mitko for infecting him and, by extension, his partner. More than that, though, the narrator resents Mitko's refusal to accept help from the narrator. On death's door, Mitko visits the narrator one last time looking even more ragged and emaciated than before. Mitko rambles deliriously about God and expresses regret over the decisions he made in his life. At this moment, the narrator does not want to give Mitko the only thing he wants: to have someone with him when he dies. Instead, the narrator gives Mitko money and asks him to leave. As he walks out into the street and to his certain death, Mitko understands that he and the narrator were never friends.

What Belongs to You is an intense and powerful work that deftly explores issues of family, sexuality, and death.