Autumn Book Club - Separate Rooms by Vittorio Tondelli
Join us for a discussion of "Separate Rooms" by Vittorio Tondelli at our September Book Club!
Book Club Meeting: Spring Edition
Book Club Meeting: Autumn Edition
Open Doors has partnered with Alexandra Lawrence to read four books – one per season – by Italian authors in translation. Each has been chosen for their diverse content, including themes of immigration, class dynamics, LGBTQ+ relationships, and mental health. Each season Open Door editor Lauren Mouat and Alexandra will have an online discussion about the book before opening it up to a group discussion.
Book: Separate Rooms by Vittorio Tondelli
Zoom Link for Sept 29 at 6pm Italy time: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89904510828?pwd=W5AEFTSMCYzb1E1UzI6VfxYywNppn9.1
Synopsis
Leo is an Italian writer in his thirties. Thomas, his German lover, is dead. On a plane to Munich, Thomas's home town, Leo slips into a reverie of their meeting and life in Paris, nights in Thomas's flat in Montmartre and a desperate, drug-induced flight through the forests of northern France that spells the end for Leo and Thomas' languid, erotic life together. Leo travels to find anonymity.
Structured in three musical movements, Separate Rooms is a story of ideal love, broken by absence and separation. When Thomas was alive, he and Leo had separate rooms in order to preserve the urgency of their passion. Now, Leo faces solitude, the impossible striving of memory to recreate life and the hostility of a prejudiced world. Separate Rooms, Tondelli's last book, is a powerful novel of the strength of love and the trauma of death.
Join us for a discussion of "Separate Rooms" by Vittorio Tondelli at our September Book Club!
Book Club Meeting: Spring Edition
Book Club Meeting: Autumn Edition
Open Doors has partnered with Alexandra Lawrence to read four books – one per season – by Italian authors in translation. Each has been chosen for their diverse content, including themes of immigration, class dynamics, LGBTQ+ relationships, and mental health. Each season Open Door editor Lauren Mouat and Alexandra will have an online discussion about the book before opening it up to a group discussion.
Book: Separate Rooms by Vittorio Tondelli
Zoom Link for Sept 29 at 6pm Italy time: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89904510828?pwd=W5AEFTSMCYzb1E1UzI6VfxYywNppn9.1
Synopsis
Leo is an Italian writer in his thirties. Thomas, his German lover, is dead. On a plane to Munich, Thomas's home town, Leo slips into a reverie of their meeting and life in Paris, nights in Thomas's flat in Montmartre and a desperate, drug-induced flight through the forests of northern France that spells the end for Leo and Thomas' languid, erotic life together. Leo travels to find anonymity.
Structured in three musical movements, Separate Rooms is a story of ideal love, broken by absence and separation. When Thomas was alive, he and Leo had separate rooms in order to preserve the urgency of their passion. Now, Leo faces solitude, the impossible striving of memory to recreate life and the hostility of a prejudiced world. Separate Rooms, Tondelli's last book, is a powerful novel of the strength of love and the trauma of death.