by André Aciman
First published 2007
Elio expects nothing from the summer of 1983 at his family's villa in Lombardy. The seventeen-year-old watches the familiar routines until Oliver arrives to assist his father with research. The graduate student transforms everything. Elio feels cautious around this newcomer at first. Oliver seems equally guarded. But fascination replaces their careful distance. Something unexpected grows between them under the Italian sun. Elio discovers the overwhelming power of first love as the heat intensifies their connection. Time works against them. Oliver's position ends when summer does. He will leave for his old life. Both young men understand the forces that will separate them. The choices they make in these fleeting weeks will echo through the years ahead, long after Oliver vanishes and the season becomes memory.
Genres: literary-fiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, italian-literature, contemporary-romance, gay-fiction
Vibes: bittersweet, intimate, lyrical, nostalgic, sensual, thought-provoking
Tropes: doomed-romance, forbidden-love, slow-burn, summer-romance
Setting: Bergamo, Italy, Northern Italy
Period: 1983, 1984
248 pages · Hardcover · Farrar, Straus and Giroux