Overview

'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.

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9781399734516

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Reviews

A classic of Italian gay fiction . . . the whole thing is bathed in elegiac pathos . . . beautiful and poignant -- Bartolomeo Sala * The Times * Read the classic novel of love and memory . . . before it becomes a Luca Guadagnino film -- Most anticipated books of 2025 * Literary Hub * Separate Rooms is a classic in Italy: a story of love and youth and pain that will have you clutching at your heart. I want everyone to read it; I want to press it into people's hands. Surely one of the best novels I've ever read -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of LESS Separate Rooms is a stunning novel. Pier Vittorio Tondelli paints a picture of queer love at once woozy, intimate and frayed at the edges by grief and history. He poses essential questions about what it means to build a life, and what the act of writing demands of us. If you ever need reminding why we run towards connection, even in the face of risk and loss, read this book, and prepare to be deeply moved -- Jack Parlett, author of FIRE ISLAND A major work of queer literature. Don't be deceived by the title. Separate Rooms is uncompromisingly about loss: the loss of self that a gay man, brought up to a solitary sense of identity by a world that doesn't recognise queer love, feels on falling in love; and then, shatteringly, the deranging effects of bereavement. Miraculously it does end with a note of hope, but Tondelli (who was himself to die of an AIDS-related illness in 1991) is not afraid to show the absurdity of grief: ""The fact is, Leo, he's dead. And you're not. That's why he's not the right man for you."" Bleak and harrowingly funny and eventually gloriously redemptive -- Will Tosh, author of STRAIGHT ACTING An Italian novel of imperfect love and urgent grief * New York Times * A novel of dignified beauty * Observer * A masterly piece of writing, rich with insight and detail, and a curiously moving optimism * Gay Times * Tondelli's was a meticulous talent, precise and particular, his writing full of nicely observed detail and an almost microscopic view of everyday things and feelings * Financial Times * A discreet, lyrical meditation on the nature of male love -- Edmund White

Author Information

Pier Vittorio Tondelli was born in Correggio in 1955 and died in 1991. He made his debut in 1980 with Altri libertini, which was followed in 1982 by Pao Pao. In 1985 he published the novel Rimini, followed by Biglietti agli amici in 1986 and Separate Rooms in 1989.

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