In the Absence of Men is a novel by Phillippe Besson published originally in French by Éditions Julliard in 2001. Dur de lire ce livre sans être bouleversé, touché, remué, dur de ne pas laisser couler des larmes devant une telle intensité, une si magnifique pureté.

Seeing that his works aroused so much interest, Philippe Besson then decided to dedicate himself exclusively to his writing. O diário é de uma sensibilidade incrível, e traduz bem o que será um espírito de 16 anos, vivendo as circunstâncias que a personagem vive. O livro é triste, o sentimento que o anima é exaltante, mas a morte ronda todos de uma forma muito próxima. One of the most interesting literary devices I saw in this novel was the fact that parts of it were written in the second-person narrative.

It is an important work in queer literature, and one that certainly influenced future queer books set in this period of modern history.

But when you have finished reading Lie With Me, I would urge you to dig deeper into Besson and enjoy prose as you rarely find it nowadays. Estamos em 1916 e Vincent dorme a noite toda, até ser manhã, com o filho da empregada, com a maior das descontracções. Sem saber do que se tratava, fiquei positivamente surpreso quando percebi que o Marcel que aparecia como personagem era ninguém menos que Proust - e quando a ficha caiu, o livro ganhou mais e mais camadas de significado. I felt there could’ve been more character building in part one or at least the author could’ve gotten us more engaged with the primary character as he came off rather unlikeable.So the last time I read a piece of LGBT literature was back in May 2010, when I read Boy Culture by Matthew Rettenmund. In the course of one week—at literary salons, at the Ritz, in cork-lined rooms—Vincent launches an intense friendship with the celebrated Proust, while at his parents’ house in Paris he embarks on a sensual journey with Arthur Vales, the soldier son of a family servant, on leave from the front.

The inclusion of Marcel Proust in the novel is fascinating, adding literary cameos to the scenes already steeped in decadence. Like Michael Cunningham’s homage to Virginia Woolf in The Hours and Jean Rhys’s to Charlotte Bronte in The Wide Sargasso Sea, Philippe Besson’s extravagantly praised first novel pays tribute to Marcel Proust. Then there are books I love because they completely absorb me into their world, with characters I feel drawn to, and almost feel like I care about their stories in real terms.This allows for an epistolary section in which the three characters, via a trialogue, speculate on love and war. Marcel greatly loved his mother while she lived; Vincent is indifferent to his mother; Arthur is the only child with a strong mother/son love. I do not want to reveal what the climax was about, but once everything fits into place, one would just be swept away.