In the Absence of Men

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About In The Absence Of Men

Review "In the Absence of Men is a short, bold and original novel which beautifully captures the romance and amorality of gilded youth. It is particularly notable for a totally convincing portrait of Proust." —Independent "An astonishing love story, beautifully told." —Time Out "Besson is brave to include Proust but his courage pays off: this is a beautiful, dreamily experimental novel unafraid of describing either joy or pain." —Metro "An elegiac tale of first, hidden love between two teenage boys who have no chance of a shared future, "Lie with Me" sold more than a hundred thousand copies in France, where it won several prizes and is being made into a movie." —New Yorker "Lie With Me is an exquisite whisper that lingers long after you've finished reading it." —Kevin Kwan, author, Crazy Rich Asians "A stunning and heart-gripping tale." — André Aciman, author, Call Me by Your Name Product Description It is the summer of 1916 and, with German Zeppelins on the skyline, the men of Paris are off at war. For Vincent, the 16-year-old son of a prestigious family, the tranquility of the city sits at odds with the salons and soirees he attends. But, after an electrifying encounter with the enigmatic writer, Marcel P, draws Vincent’s desires out into the light, his ever-riskier liaisons with a young soldier begin to shape Vincent’s future. About the Author Philippe Besson is the author of Lie WithMe, which was the Advocate's Best Gay Novel of 2019, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, and one of O, the Oprah Magazine's "Best LGBTQ Books That'll Change the Literary Landscape in 2019." Frank Wynne won the International Dublin Literary Award jointly with Michel Houellebecq for Atomised. His translation of Frédéric Beigbeder's Windows on the World won the 2005 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and he is a two-time winner of both the Scott Moncrieff Translation Prize for translation from the French and the Premio Valle Inclán for Spanish Translation. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. 1 I am sixteen. I am as old as the century. I know there is a war, that soldiers are dying on the front lines of this war, that civilians are dying in the towns and the countryside of France and elsewhere, that the war – more than the destruction, more than the mud, more than the whistle of bullets as they tear through a man’s chest, more than the shattered faces of the women who wait, hoping sometimes against hope, for a letter which never arrives, for a leave of absence perpetually postponed, more than the game of politics that is played by nations – is the sum of the simple, cruel, sad and anonymous deaths of soldiers, of civilians whose names we will one day read on the pediments of monuments, to the sound of a funeral march. And yet, I know nothing of war. I live in Paris. I am a pupil at the lycée Louis-le-Grand. I am sixteen. People say: what a beautiful child! Look at him, he really is magnificent. Black hair. Green, almond- shaped eyes. A girl’s complexion. I say: they are mistaken, I am no longer a child. I am sixteen and I know perfectly well that to be sixteen is a triumph. More so, perhaps, in time of war. Because I have escaped the war, while those just a little older, those who mocked me, have not escaped, and so are absent. And so I am almost alone, wreathed in the palpable triumph of my sixteen years, surrounded by women who take care of me, with their excessive, frightened care. I love this new century, which carries with it my hopes, this century which will be mine. Mother said time and again, before the summer of 1914, that to be born with the century was a sign from God, a benediction, a promise of happiness. She was proud of this miraculous coincidence: my birth, and that of the twentieth century. For his part, father spoke of renewal. I think he used the adjective: modern. I was unaware that he knew the meaning of the word. He is a man of the old century, of the past. He is old. My parents are o