Call Me by Your Name
2007
- lgbt
- italy
- summer
- love
- romance
- teenage boys
- authors
- fiction
- gay teenagers
- boys and men
The story
It's the summer of 1983, and precocious 17-year-old Elio Perlman is spending the days with his family at their 17th-century villa in Lombardy, Italy. He soon meets Oliver, a handsome doctoral student who's working as an intern for Elio's father. Amid the sun-drenched splendor of their surroundings, Elio and Oliver discover the heady beauty of awakening desire over the course of a summer that will alter their lives forever.
What it’s like
Long, looping sentences that circle a single feeling until it blooms, with heat in every paragraph: sun on stone, cicadas, river water, apricots and peaches split open on a sunlit table. The prose is sensual and self-examining, drifting between a teenager's restless mind and quiet summer afternoons in a 17th-century villa in northern Italy, with classical music threaded through the days. The vibe is languorous and aching, a slow golden haze that tips into wistfulness and a bittersweet ache as the season wears on. It suits a long lazy afternoon, a warm evening with a glass of wine, or a late-night read when you want to be somewhere else entirely. The pace is unhurried, built on memory, longing and small rituals rather than events, and the emotional register is tender, intimate and reflective. Its central romance between two men is handled with frank physical and emotional detail, including several explicit sexual scenes, but there is no violence and little peril beyond the sting of feeling. Best for readers who want lush sensory writing, a coming-of-age ache, and romance that lingers on desire and loss.
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