the brother where sincerity actually lands
whatever's said to you is so completely believed by you that, what, it becomes sort of true in transit. Flies through the air toward you and reverses its spin and hits you true, however mendaciously it comes off the other person's stick.
Context
Hal, a connoisseur of everyone's lies, tries to work out how Mario is never once fooled and lands on a different physics: whatever comes at Mario, however crooked it leaves the sender, reverses its spin in the air and arrives true. Mario is the one receiver in the book on whom sincerity actually registers — "with you I can feel you mean it" — which is why the counterpoint the brothers run all night, two monologues that only graze each other, is somehow the warmest failed conversation in the novel: the connection survives even when the content doesn't land. [sweep · shared-ground irony-sincerity]