André Aciman – Stowaways – Faber & Faber

This contemporary twist on Brief Encounter is a tender meditation on what might have been. 'Maybe we love people because they won't let us know them.' A summer's evening in Manhattan. Nothing - not cold drinks, not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night drugstore - can undo the heat's hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news, his husband filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject line: 'From Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Carol - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he'd like her to relay. Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park Grill is agreed. Carol, fulfilling Paul's final request, wonders how she will tell Julian of a life - and a love - he has no idea existed. A life, encased in a flash drive, containing multitudes.