Separate Rooms

‘An Italian novel of imperfect love and urgent grief’

NEW YORK TIMES

‘A story of love and youth and pain that will have you clutching at your heart. . . One of the best novels I’ve ever read’

ANDREW SEAN GREER

‘A novel of dignified beauty’

OBSERVER

‘A masterly piece of writing, rich with insight and detail, and a curiously moving optimism’

GAY TIMES

‘A discreet, lyrical meditation on the nature of male love’

EDMUND WHITE

With an introduction by Andre Aciman, bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name

Thomas, a young German musician, is dying. Unable to bear the slow and inevitable demise of his lover, his older boyfriend Leo, a renowned Italian writer, condemns himself to moving cities every few weeks, searching for a solace that proves elusive.

As Leo travels through Europe, past and present overlap, and reminders of the life he and Thomas shared become inescapable. Wanting to preserve the passion of their relationship, Leo had convinced Thomas to live separately: in separate rooms, separate towns, with separate lives. Now, face to face with true solitude, Leo must reckon with regret and nostalgia and the impossible striving of memory to recreate life.

Separate Rooms is a singular and unforgettable meditation on almost-ideal love, told in three musical movements, by a fiery and unforgettable literary talent.