Lie With Me: 'Stunning and heart-gripping' André Aciman

Product Information

I should be able to stay in this state of ecstasy. Or astonishment. Or let myself be overwhelmed by the incomprehensibility of it all. But the feeling that prevails the moment he disappears is that of being abandoned. Perhaps because it is already a familiar feeling. A beautiful, shattering novel about desire and shame, about passionate youth and the regrets of age. Olivia Laing, bestselling author of 'Crudo' and 'The Lonely City'

Later I will write about this longing, the intolerable deprivation of the other. I will write about the sadness that eats away at you, making you crazy. It will become the template for my books, in spite of myself. I wonder sometimes if I have ever written of anything else. It’s as if I never recovered from it: the inaccessible other, occupying all my thoughts. On reflection, maybe that’s all a bit harsh. I suppose Paul does have some redeeming qualities, as do his friends. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start with the plot of Sabine Durrant’s utterly engrossing psychological thriller. Lie with Me may be auto-biographical as a genre or may be better described as fiction, but there can be no doubt that it is honest. It bares the soul and the pain of its author as few books ever do. As the day ends, I am the amusing child in the tub with his bare feet and legs, stamping on the grapes to crush the skins. It’s the end of the season, and everyone gathers around a long table. People are speaking loudly, drinking, laughing, playing the guitar, for the last time before the Spaniards leave to return the following autumn, or possibly never. For me the separation is heartbreaking. Later I sit in the distillery in front of the stills and copper pipes, waiting for the smoke to escape. It’s called “the angel’s share.” I am the child who is waiting for the share of the angels. My father was amused to have his son participate in this ritual, but he had already repeated many times over that he didn’t want this life for me. No land or field work, no manual labor. It was out of the question for him that I should be a member of the working class. It has been years since anything moved me as much as Lie With Me. It will become a classic Jonathan Coe, bestselling author of 'Middle England'Le prix Maison de la presse révèle sa sélection finale 2017". Livres Hebdo (in French) . Retrieved 10 September 2023. Nathalie is a year and a half younger than he is. It made sense for a second child to be born so soon after the first one, but he says she doesn’t look anything like him. She takes after their father. She has his light eyes, his strength. You can tell from the clothes, the high-waisted ultra-skinny acid-wash jeans, the patterned sweaters. Some of the girls wear woolen leggings in different colors that pool around their ankles. Truly stunning & original & rare. One of the most odious & compelling & fascinating narrator's ever.” - Claire Kendal, author of THE BOOK OF YOU

Thomas Andrieu, I don’t know who his father is or even if that matters. I don’t know where he lives. At that moment, I don’t know anything about him, except for terminal D. And his shaggy hair and somber look. For a long time I wondered if this oppressive religious ideology—the deliverance from evil as a divine principle drummed in day after day, the biblical message of fixed gender roles that his mother internalized, the sanctification of stable relationships as practiced by this unblemished family—could have exercised an influence on a child forbidden to rebel. I think, probably, yes. I figure that the only real acceptable objection to his reluctance must be material, concrete, almost trivial. I say: My parents work, they’re almost never there, we won’t be bothered. I’m counting on his fear of being found out. He says okay, that he will come.

One thing that the reader is bound to consider is just how much of the book is fiction. While it’s not unusual for fiction to be based on a true story, it’s brought to another level by the fact that the book’s protagonist shares both a name and a biography with the author (they come from the same town and have written books of the same name, so it’s not exactly subtle). Philippe (the author) plays with the line between truth and fiction, but only reveals so much. The Author

The main argument between Thomas and Philippe is that Thomas feels like he has to stay home to take care of his family’s farm, and Philippe feels like he has to leave to fulfill his father’s wishes that he become an academic. Are these characters trapped by their fate? Whose side did you take in the argument?Despite the intensity of their attraction, from the beginning Thomas knows how it will end: “Because you will leave and we will stay,” he says. Philippe becomes a writer and travels the world, though as this “tender, sensuous novel” ( The New York Times Book Review) shows, he never lets go of the relationship that shaped him, and every story he’s ever told. If I had not been abandoned by my friends, if he had failed to convince his to leave him behind, this moment would not have taken place. It could have almost never happened. I was able to see this beautiful film at the Alliance Française French Film Festival in Australia. Based on the book "Arrête avec tes Mensonges," it was exceptional in so many ways. It was one of those films that leave the audience lingering afterwards to discuss it with complete strangers. For me it was the best film in the entire film festival. This feeling of love, it transports me, it makes me happy. At the same time, it consumes me and makes me miserable, the way all impossible loves are miserable. I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

I watch him doze and then his face rolls over to the left, instantly waking him up. He puts the headphones from his Walkman on my ears. He wants me to listen to Bruce Springsteen. And him; he watches what they do. He knows that they find him attractive. Good-looking guys always know it. It’s a calm kind of certainty. A beautiful novella/memoir. Besson insists it is fiction, but the novella itself is replete with references to the main character denying his novels are actually memoir and each time he is totally lying. If this is fiction, Besson is a master. He created a beautiful and utterly believable story.The book covers the first love of our narrator who is named, like the "novelist", Philippe, and his reintroduction to that lover's story 20+ years after he left. Besson magically captures the ephemeral beauty of first love, which in spite of that ephemerality, remains with us forever because it is the only love we ever have before heartbreak makes us too cautious to be fully vulnerable. The story's end, many years later reached by coincidence or fate breaks the heart into smaller bits. There is nothing surprising or revolutionary here. Rather it is a relatable tale, filled with feelings most of us have had, told in the simplest yet most lyrical way. It is simply lovely. I listened to the audio, and thought the narrator, Jacques Roy, was excellent. Read more But fate steps in when he bumps into an old friend from uni. As usual, Paul paints a rosy picture of his current life, and with his well-worn blend of rogue’s charm and deft bending of the truth, attaches himself, leechlike, to his friend’s friends. It all ends up with an invitation to spend the summer with them in a Greek villa, owned by an attractive widow, Alice. Paul fancies his chances with Alice, as he does with every woman he meets, and heads off happily into the sun.There’s no chance either that he’s heard the praise the teachers have given me: we’ve never been in the same class. So here they are, in Jake’s home country, with his mother next door (in Antipodean terms) and awaiting the arrival of a new nanny so that Anna can start the new job that Jake’s friend has kindly arranged for her. I am an exemplary student, one who never misses a class, who almost always gets the best grades, who is the pride of his teachers. Today, I’d like to slap this seventeen-year-old kid, not because of the good grades but because of his incessant need to please those who would judge him. As soon as the desire is satisfied, pleasure achieved, our bodies sated, I figure it will be like the last time in the gym: the silence, the faces turned away, the hurried separation. But he has decided otherwise. He says that it would be better to wait since it’s still raining too hard and there won’t be anyone outside anyway. I understand that he intends to speak.