In the Absence of Men by Philippe Besson

From the author of the international bestseller Lie with Me comes a tender, harrowing portrait of first love—and the courage it takes to be exactly who you are.

Summer, 1916. German Zeppelins shadow the Paris skyline, and the men of the city are off at war. For sixteen-year-old Vincent, too young to fight, this moment of dread becomes a moment of possibility.

An electrifying encounter with Marcel, an enigmatic novelist, draws Vincent’s desires into the light. By day, he’s mentored in the city’s opulent cafés. By night, he hides Arthur—the son of his governess and a young soldier home on leave—in his bedroom, where the two risk everything to be together.

Theirs is a secret everyone seems to know and no one will name. A magical week stolen from the trenches, when Vincent whispers to Arthur, “Nothing will happen to you.”

Besson writes the way the sea moves in—quietly at first, then all at once. This is a story about how exhilarating, and how heart-crushing, it is to fall in love for the very first time.

The award-winning novel “beautifully captures the romance and amorality of gilded youth” (The Independent), and readers of literary historical fiction and LGBTQ+ stories will find much to linger over here.

Steps from the salt air of Perkins Cove, this is the kind of book we love pressing into a reader’s hands. Pour a cup of tea. Find a quiet chair. Let yourself fall into a Paris summer that aches with beauty.

A discovery worth making.

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