In the Absence of Men

Philippe Besson

ISBN 10: 1529949092 / ISBN 13: 9781529949094

Published by Vintage Publishing, GB, 2024

About this Item

Vincent comes of age in Paris in the summer of 1916.With German Zeppelins on the skyline, the men of Paris are off at war. For Vincent, the sixteen-year-old son of a prestigious family, the stillness of the city sits at odds with the candlelit salons he attends at night. Then an electrifying encounter with the enigmatic writer, Marcel P, draws Vincent's desires out into the light, while his ever-riskier liaisons with a young solider begin to shape his future.As the First World War tightens its grip, In the Absence of Men captures the urgency of youth and the fragility of love in a world on the brink of catastrophe.'A short, bold and original novel which beautifully captures the romance and amorality of gilded youth' IndependentElegant novellas-in-translation, VINTAGE EDITIONS celebrate the audacity and ambition of the written word, transporting readers to wherever in the world literary innovation may be found.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781529949094

Bibliographic Details

• Title: In the Absence of Men
• Publisher: Vintage Publishing, GB
• Publication Date: 2024
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1529949092
• ISBN 13: 9781529949094
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New
• Weight: 200 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A magical first novel by a talented young French author recreates Proust’s upper-middle-class Paris during WWI.

Few established novelists would dare to write a novel in which Proust appears as a character. Fewer still would have the nerve to invent love letters written by Proust to a 16-year-old boy. For a first novelist to set himself this challenge and succeed is remarkable.

Paris 1916. Vincent is 16 and approaching manhood very much “in the absence of men” with every able-bodied young man away at the front. In his relationship with the soldier-son of one of his parent’s servants, he explores his sexuality. His platonic relationship with the middle-aged Jewish writer Marcel Proust stimulates an intelligence and sophistication remarkable in an adolescent. With both he enters a world of love, both erotic and platonic. The book is as remarkable an act of homage to a great writer as Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Seas was to Charlotte Bronte.