When the novel opens, Melvin’s in transit. Riding a New York City subway with a past date named Tonya, he sees a man come onto her. The moment makes him insecure; should he have stood up to the man on Tonya’s behalf? Fought him? “I guess I should have done something,” he wonders aloud, like he’s playing for forgiveness. It’s not forthcoming, because Tonya isn’t offended by his inaction in the least. “What could you have done?” she retorts. She rejects the notion that Melvin’s gender makes it his duty to defend her honor—she’s perfectly well off defending it herself, as she reminds him. “You know, I almost kicked that dude in his family jewels. I caught myself just in time. I guess that wouldn’t have made you look too good if I had.” Melvin finds himself anxious over Tonya’s implication: that she doesn’t need him around at all. At least, not in the tired, predictable ways he wants her to need him.

Tragic Magic is about tragedy, alright—the kinds of tragedies men bring upon themselves by allowing their inner lives to be ensnared in the trap we’ve come to call toxic masculinity; and the death of mind, spirit, and body that ensues when men willingly lower themselves into the coffin of gender expectations, how that death pervades everything from friendships to political activism. The scene is the first of many haunted by the specter of this death. When Melvin finds himself in a Pennsylvania prison preparing to serve a three-year bid for dodging the Vietnam War draft, he meets Chilly, an old hand of incarcerated life who warns him that not appearing like a certain kind of man can mean death. Or, worse, the ultimate violation of normative masculinity—sex between men. To that end, Chilly gives Melvin a set of directives: “Watch yourself when you take a shower. Don’t walk around half nude. And for your own protection, make sure you stay on a top bunk. The main thing is to be a man.”

But, as Brown suggests, being a man is dangerous business. When Melvin finds himself staring at another man’s body in the prison shower, he indulges in gorgeous description, some of the novel’s most beautiful writing. “The slouch in his shoulders is an indication that very little has impressed him enough to make him straighten up. His face interests me most of all,” he rhapsodizes. “His hair, sideburns, and mustache have been trimmed as evenly as a well-kept lawn. And he is the color of a skillet broken in by cooking.” He catches himself, though, remembering where he is. “I’ve got to be more careful… At any moment someone may decide you will make a good piece of merchandise.”