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

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Though Lie With Me is the first French book we’ve chosen for the book club, French is actually the most common language to be translated into English. France and America’s literary histories are intertwined, as both Paris and New York have been important centers of written culture in the past 100 years. It’s no coincidence that the American expatriate authors of the early 20th century — Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein — chose Paris to settle down in. Discussion Questions 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.

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. The story of a gay adolescent/man unable to accept his orientation, the damage his living lie does to others, the extension of his lie in his adult relationship, the impact on the man who truly loved him as well as on himself transcends the details of the plot and storyline. This is the kind of book that will recall in all gay readers their own struggles with self-acceptance, but more importantly, it cannot help but impact heterosexual readers with a greater empathy for those who do not share their sexual orientation. I find it a handsome name, a beautiful identity. I don’t know yet that one day I will write books, that I will invent characters and I will have to name those characters, but I am already sensitive to the sound of identities, to their fluidity. However, I do know that first names can betray a social origin, a context that anchors those who carry them to a particular era. 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'To escape this feeling of being excommunicated, I reason with myself: perhaps he was simply disappointed, I didn’t live up to what he had imagined. I keep telling myself that despite the evidence, it can be fixed, I can make it up to him. I’m already hoping to be able to beg for another chance. I hang on to the possibility of redemption. 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 I have no idea that one day I will write books. It’s an inconceivable hypothesis. If by some extraordinary chance the idea happened to cross my mind, I would have chased it away. The son of a school principal, an imposter?

When I sit across from him, without saying a word, he doesn’t lift his head at first, keeping his eyes on the ashtray. He taps on his cigarette to make the ashes fall, but he hasn’t smoked it enough. It’s a gesture intended to convey composure, but it only makes him appear more vulnerable. He doesn’t touch his beer. Me, I stay silent thinking it’s up to him to speak first, since he was the one to initiate this strange meeting. I guess that my silence accentuates his discomfort, but what can I do? NPR Cookie Consent and Choices". NPR. Archived from the original on 24 June 2021 . Retrieved 6 August 2021. His mother’s family still lives in Vilalba. The brothers married and have kids. All the kids have cousins who live within a mile. The reunions are always joyous and the goodbyes bittersweet, everyone regretting they have so little time together. Thomas says that he doesn’t know Vilalba very well because they usually just stay at the house for endless conversations, punctuated by laughter and complaints, long lunches and drawn-out dinners. He says that for him Spain is just people in his family who love one another, who eat and drink and cut each other off in conversation until night falls. He imagines an ascension, some kind of epiphany. He believes me to have a brilliant destiny, convinced that within our little community nearly forgotten by the gods, there are only a few chosen and that I’m among them. It’s a way to go straight to the point, to show him the same candor he has shown me. It’s also a way to validate everything else, everything that’s been said, to get rid of it. To say: I understand, everything is fine, it’s fine with me. I feel the same.We leave the gym as we came in, sneaking ourselves through the window, and return to the biting cold of winter outside.