Fabulous Fiction Firsts #48

Fri, 01/26/2007 - 7:16pm by muffy

Call Me By Your Name* is the “clear-eyed, bare-knuckled, and ultimately unforgettable” first novel by André Aciman, author of Out of Egypt: A Memoir.

Set in a cliffside mansion on the idyllic Italian Riviera, what is to be another relaxed summer of fun and sunshine for Elio and his family, becomes the erotic coming-of-age for this 17 year-old, with the latest in a string of visiting resident scholars invited by his father, a prominent expatriate professor.

From the moment Oliver steps out of the taxi, Elio found himself troubling attracted to the young, breezy, spontaneous and sexy American graduate student working on a book about Heraclitus.

"In his first work of fiction, Aciman describes Elio's anxiety, uncertainty, awkwardness, and, later, passion in incredibly vivid detail, leaving no thought process unexplored. The strong bond between the two characters is reminiscent of the bond between Ennis and Jack in Brokeback Mountain, where each finds in the other the one true love of his life."

*= Starred Review