From the bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, this contemporary twist on A 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, showers or 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 partner filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject line: 'From Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Chloe - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he'd like her to relay.

Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park Grill is agreed. Chloe, 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.

'Aciman writes with an aching sensitivity.' - John Boyne, Irish Times

Details

ISBN13: 9780571399925
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 112
Edition: Main
Publication Date: 03 Mar 2026
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication City, Country: London, United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 19.8(H)x12.9(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

André Aciman is the New York Times bestselling author of Call Me By Your Name, Find Me, The Gentleman from Peru, Room on the Sea, Out of Egypt, Eight White Nights, False Papers, Alibis, Harvard Square, Enigma Variations, and the essay collection Homo Irrealis. He's the editor of The Proust Project and teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He lives with his wife in Manhattan.

Reviews

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