THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY BEST BOOKS OF 2009THE WALL STREET JOURNAL BEST FICTION OF 2009LIBRARY JOURNAL BEST BOOKS OF 2009FAVORITE FICTION OF 2009 FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES James Lasdun's great gift is his instinct for the vertiginous moments when the essence of a life discloses itself. In sharply evoked settings that range from the wilds of northern Greece to the beaches of Cape Cod, these intensely dramatic tales in It's Beginning to Hurt chart the metamorphoses of their characters as they fall prey to the range of human passions. As James Wood has written, James Lasdun seems to me to be one of the secret gardens of English writing. . . . When we read him we know what language is for.