"Find me" by Andre Aciman

An audio book. Until I read the reviews I hadn't heard of "Call me by your name".

Sami, a father (a prof) joins the Rome train at Florence, on the way to visit his grown son, Elio. He gets into conversation with Miranda, a beautiful, clever young woman going to visit her terminally ill father, who's also a prof. They engage in conversation. They both worry about being too forward, too withdrawn, apologising for imagined slights - "She'd seen right through me. And she'd seen that I knew it". She says that he's good company, that people "like who they are when they're with you". They both have therapists. She's in an unhappy relationship. She invites him to her father's flat. He's writing a rather abstract dissertation about time, how each 24 hours God blushes for shame (sunset) and asks forgiveness (dawn) about making people die. There are anecdotes in the essay showing how events and the awareness of them are on 2 different timelines. She's a B/W photographer. Rather than accept her offer of going to his hotel room he takes her to a old house - a photo opportunity.

At a concert a man, a pianist, meets Michel, a man twice his age. They're attracted to each other, cautiously. We learn that the man is the son of Sami in the first part, that Sami has married Miranda and they have a child. In Michel's family house out of town there's a mysterious old handwritten musical score, which they discuss. It was a gift from someone called Leon to Michel's father. His father had then lost interest in music. The pianist says he's going to do a tour of the States. Michelle realises that he isn't The One.

"I" (Oliver?) and his wife Micol are hosting a leaving party. He'd been hoping that living in New York for a year would bring them together again. He tells her he needs to go back to Italy. "Are you leaving me?" she asks. "I think so," he replies.

Oliver's on holiday in Italy with Elio(?) who he's met 20 years before, they go to Alexandria. They meet young Oliver.

There's much about comparing love then and now - with the same person or with others.

"Tears began to well up in my eyes". Where else would they well up?

Other reviews

• John Boyne (Having read much of Aciman’s work, I find his writing intriguing and maddening in equal parts. While the elegance of his prose and the sophistication of his characters are to be admired, his creations rarely seem human, speaking in a pompous fashion where everyone, regardless of age or circumstance, is intimately familiar with classical music and philosophy. Love lies at the heart of his books, but as a concept rather than a reality. No one in an Aciman novel can ever just go on a few dates and see how things work out. Instead they know from their first interaction that they’re destined to be together, revelling in the authenticity of their affections. Ultimately, it does not make them seem evolved but narcissistic, shallow and a little immature.)
• Kate Waldman (The result is a novel that feels besotted with its characters despite scant evidence of their charms. The sex writing itself is unfortunate. ... The Oliver section is likewise seeded with defective epiphanies. ... The book wants to be intimate, profound, but it reads as glib and remote, impervious to actual feeling. Indeed, the text seems not to account for an audience.)
• goodreads