I picked up J.M. Coetzee's book "Slow Man" after seeing it appear on one of the older NY Times Notable Books lists. I had read a number of his books including Disgrace but not for a while so I was interested to see how this one was. And I was super impressed with this book and read it in almost one sitting. Coetzee writes with such a flourish and with such attention to detail that you feel as if you really get to know the characters in an intimate way. In Slow Man, we are introduced to a man named Paul who was out biking one day in his town in Australia and is hit by an erratic driver. He and his bike fly through the air and he ends up having his leg amputated. This happen early on in the book and the rest of the story focuses on Paul's recovery and how he gets used to living back in his apartment crippled by his injury. Paul declines to have a prosthesis fitted and as a result needs a lot of home care early. He eventually is sent a woman named Marijana who hails from Croatia and we see Paul becoming attracted to her to the point where he wants to provide for her kids' educational expenses-a move which angers Marijana's husband. In what I think was the weirdest part of the book, an older woman magically appears at Paul's doorstep and begins dispensing advice to him--none of which he really wants or cares for. At this point the book wanders around a bit as we are introduced to Marijana's son Drago who is in need of some direction in life which Paul attempts to provide. Coetzee really does a great job bringing the reader into Paul's mind in a deep way. His struggles to live a "normal" life, his desire to not take much help from his caregivers so he can go it alone as much as possible, and his loneliness as a result of not being able to maneuver as well as he used to be able to. I highly recommend Slow Man both for fans of J.M. Coetzee and for those looking for a good, easy, and tender read.