Stowaways

This contemporary twist on Brief Encounter is a tender meditation on what might have been.

'Maybe we love people because they won't let us know them.'

A summer's evening in Manhattan. Nothing - not cold drinks, not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night drugstore - can undo the heat's hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news, his husband filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject line: 'From Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Carol - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he'd like her to relay.

Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee is agreed. Carol, fulfilling Paul's final request, wonders how she will tell Julian of a life - and a love - he has no idea existed. A life, encased in a flash drive, containing multitudes.

Review

Aciman pieces together a rich tapestry of human emotion in a way few other contemporary writers can match. ― Dazed

Aciman writes with an aching sensitivity. ― Irish Times

Aciman writes arousal so beautifully you miss it when it's gone . . . he writes with the ferocity of a writer who's finally getting his vision down, and he has to say it, has to get it out. ― New York Times

About the Author

André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, and various works of fiction and non fiction. He's the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center in New York. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.