The critically acclaimed, internationally beloved novel by Philippe Besson—“this year’s Call Me By Your Name” (Vulture) with raves in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal,NPR, Vanity Fair, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Out—about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress and writer Molly Ringwald.
In this “sexy, pure, and radiant story” (Out), Philippe chances upon a young man outside a hotel in Bordeaux who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Thomas is the son of a farmer; Philippe the son of a school principal. At school, they don’t acknowledge each other. But they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.
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.
REVIEWS
“Beautifully translated by Ringwald” (NPR), this is “Philippe Besson’s book of a lifetime...an elegiac tale of first, hidden love." - The New Yorker
"Philippe Besson's book of a lifetime ... An elegiac tale of first, hidden love between two teen-age boys who have no chance of a shared future, Lie With Me sold more than a hundred thousand copies in France, where it won several prizes and is being made into a movie. Elle deemed it “the French Brokeback Mountain" ... The book reads like a photograph, faded but composed: the bac, linden trees, a green Simca 1100, Lino Ventura. We can see even if we don’t know. Call it a memoir of a memory."
— Lauren Collins, The New Yorker
"This Year’s Call Me by Your Name Is French: More Meta But Just As Hot ... Lie With Me is the story of a successful (unnamed) French novelist ... who catches a glimpse of what he thinks is a past lover in a hotel. Triggered by the sighting, he traces the story of his secret high-school affair with that lover: It was brief in tenure but formed the mold into which he has since tried to press every other romantic relationship."
— Hillary Kelly, Vulture
PRODUCT DETAILS
Paperback
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 978-1501197888
Pages: 176
