Massive thank you to Netgalley and Scribner for the e-ARC! So stunningly heartbreaking, I can’t begin to encapsulate how much I loved this. After reading Lie With Me and seeing this book translated to English, I knew I was ready to have my heart broken all over again. The prose is unbelievably gorgeous even when crushingly devastating. This is the final boss of gay yearning. Highly recommended for anyone that enjoyed Lie With Me looking for a solid new pride month read! Philippe Besson is not to be overlooked.

A gorgeously written story of first love in the midst of WWI, In the Absence of Men tells the story of Vincent, 16 and left at home while the war rages on. He falls in love with Arthur, a soldier on leave.

Perfect for fans of Call Me By Your Name and In Memoriam, Philippe Besson has written another tender love story for the ages.

I don’t know about you, but where I am, summer has started and that means chipping away at the summer reading list.

First up, is *In the Absence of Men.* I loved *Lie With Me,* another of Besson’s beautiful queer novels about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France. **This time, Besson brings us to France in the summer of 1916.

World War I rages on as sixteen-year-old Vincent, too young to fight, meets Marcel. Meeting Marcel triggers something within Vincent and propels him to meet Arthur, a young soldier on leave and the son of his governess. Together, they share a secret that everyone seems to know but no one dares discuss.

Their intense love affair marks Vincent's discovery of first love. They risk everything to be together. Do you remember your first love? Do you remember exploring feelings you couldn't name but couldn't wait to experience again? The novel delves into the raw emotions of desire, longing, and fear that accompany this relationship, capturing how exhilarating and heart-crushing first love can be.

Vincent comes of age as the war rages on. As he processes his feelings and grows more confident in his identity and his love for Arthur, the story traces his path into adulthood and loss of innocence. He navigates complicated and painful relationships while trying to understand both love and himself.

The novel is firmly rooted in gay themes and explores queer love and friendship; I’d go as far as to say this is an important work of queer literature and belongs on the same shelf as many other canonical works. As Pride Month and summer begin, this is exactly the book you'll want to read.

I fell in love with Philippe Besson’s writing when I first read “Lie With Me” last winter. Naturally, I could not wait to read more of his work!
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It is the summer of 1916 in Paris. Vincent is an aristocratic teenager who finds himself in a love affair with a young solider named Arthur on leave during the First World War. Simultaneously, Vincent forms a friendship with Marcel, a middle-aged writer.

Told in three parts: Offering, Separation, and Loss—this short novel is less than 200 pages and I absolutely devoured it. The prose is achingly stunning and tender. As soon as I finished the last page I wanted to reread it again. Besson describes the severity of war, grief, and loss to the point that it brought me to tears. This short read is heartbreaking and emotional as one might expect from Besson and a book based during war.

I am floored at how beautifully Besson captures the essence of the quiet intimacy one experiences when laying beside the one you love— when emotions flood you and you are at a loss for words. The lyrical writing just sweeps you in and makes you feel the intensity of falling in love.

I could see where the end was heading early on and wish I could have spent more time with Vincent and Arthur outside of their secret encounters. Truthfully, I did not care much for Marcel and found his interest in Vincent odd.

The perfect read for Pride Month! If you enjoyed Swimming in the Dark, Call Me By Your Name, Giovanni’s Room, Lie With Me, Open, Heaven, or In Memoriam—I would recommend this!

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Real Rating: 4.5* of five
Tragedies hardest to endure, that produce the most emotional stress in me, are stories whose endings we know are coming while the characters do not, and we can do nothing to stop their devastation. This is that story writ tight and tart.

I'll say now that it takes a giant pair to use Marcel Proust...<i>In Search of Lost Time</i> Marcel Proust!...as a character guiding and mentoring, in a platonic way, your PoV character. It could, you know from the off, go horribly wrong, end up derailing your story, cause the beau ideal of a reader for your story to scoff, nitpick, judge, and tut his way through it because—well—hubris much?

That was me as I approached the read. I left it without the tutting, but with reservations.

I loved the setting, Paris during the Great War as they knew it, and will always resonate favorably with first gay love stories. I'm glad Author Besson did not make Proust more than a controlling mentor, I think that would've overpowered any positive feelings anyone could've developed for the story. As it was, Marcel's controlling side wasn't foregrounded, but was there in story-appropriate places. It's up to you how you feel about an older man leading a teen through the terrifying, obscure, all-consuming first experience of Love by a man for a man. I know I wish to gawd he'd been there for me to consult and be guided by!

I think most of what takes place in the under two hundred pages of the story is defined by brokenness, by change that can't be slowed or processed therefore controlled, by the absolute certainty of war: nothing survives unscathed. Arthur, Vincent's governess's son, is the love of Vincent's young life. He is sexually attracted to Vincent, he is just enough older...and rougher...to make their love passionate and fulfilling, and he is away to war amid all the changes accumulating in their lives.

Herein my half-star off's origin. The wartime separation means a good deal of what's happening is epistolary. I'm sad to say that, despite the words being lovely and the device being central to the story's core of reality, this shift in mode brought the momentum of the read too far down. It is undeniable that this is a feature not a bug...how could a war-set love story not separate its lovers?...and represents the most natural and logical evolution of this pair's inevitable trajectory, but it still just stopped me in my tracks. Recalibrating my pace cost me some emotional investment in the men's love story.

The twist did not surprise me, but did affect me profoundly. Some sniffling and a modest dampening of my pillow might have occurred. I'll never tell.

I'm very, very glad I read the story; I think Translator Wynne rendered the French he found into seamlessly readable English that feels almost as though it's not translated; but there's that botched downshift from fifth to second that juddered me a hair too much, caused a bit of excessive mental transmission wear, for me to get all the way to five stars.

Definitely a read I recommend all the same.

I found In the Absence of Men to be both insightful and irritating. This novel is insightful in the way in which it explores the central character's motivations, the way he explains himself to himself, the choices he makes to shape how he is perceived. He's just sixteen, living in Paris during WWI, the son of a wealthy family, with a great deal of freedom and access to various salons. He begins two relationships simultaneously.

The first is with Marcel Proust, who he meets at one of those salons. Proust finds the boy attractive, and the boy realizes this. They embark upon what they term a friendship, really more of a romance, though with very little physical contact. Their interactions are almost stylized—ritualized—in the kind of language the two use, the ways they choose to reveal themselves to one another.

The second is with the son of his former governess, a twenty-one year old soldier home for a week on leave from the front. Easily and willingly they fall in love, become intimate, and reveal themselves to one another. The relationship offers a simultaneous romantic and carnal awakening.

The irritating part has to do with the nature of the central character. He is sixteen and endlessly examines the world and those around him in the way a sixteen-year-old might, with some compassion, but also with an intense focus on himself, how he is perceived in each interaction, whether he is choosing the right words, the right gestures. Reading In the Absence of Men is like reading a transcript of someone talking to himself in a mirror. There's a self-consciousness to his voice that presents a self-assuredness he doesn't always actually possess.

If I had to sum this novel up in brief it would be something along the lines chaste carnality and carnal chastity, all filtered through the mind of a sixteen year old still learning who he is. If you can accept the central narrative voice, you'll find this a fascinating read, but, if you're like me, you'll have repeated moments of impatience with the "mirror boy," who you may find uncomfortably similar to your own younger self.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

I’ve been wanting to read Besson’s work for awhile - this one was good, definitely beautifully written/translated, but i just felt like there wasn’t enough meat behind the story here. I liked the take on a nonsexual friendship between a younger and older gay male, but i wish we spent a little more time with these characters and their relationship.

I didn't connect with this in the way I thought I would. Because of how little time we spend with each character (aside from Vincent), I just didn't feel very much at the climax. I also failed to understand Marcel's purpose, and the lack of resolution in his relationship with Vincent following their letters was a missed opportunity.

The three men (and later one woman) in this short novel inhabit a small quiet space in Paris in the middle of World War I. The war is always present and all of the characters are defined to a greater or lesser extent by the conflict. Vincent is beautiful and sixteen and falls in love and lust with Arthur, a soldier who is the son of his governess and who is on a week-long leave from the fighting at Verdun. Almost simultaneously, Vincent begins a platonic friendship with the famous novelist Marcel Proust, who, Vincent recognizes, is a creature of pre-war Paris and, as the title of his masterpiece suggests, is focused on the past.

Vincent is a precocious 16-year old and is very direct in his relationship with Proust--the famous author is used to being surrounded by admirers; Vincent refuses to be a sycophant. With Arthur, he refuses to admit until after Arthur has returned to the front that he is in love with him. For both men Vincent is the consummate listener and his chief reaction is often silence.

At first Vincent's reticence appeared manipulative; but once Arthur left, he realized the depth of his feelings for him. Marcel also leaves Paris at the same time and he and Vincent communicate via letters, Proust warning Vincent about the dangers of homosexual love in France at the time.

The writing and the characters were interesting--three very complex men at a time when the world was falling apart. Unfortunately, the characters spoke in long monologues which made any real connections between them difficult to grasp. The ending was predictable and the big reveal in the final section left me wondering why the author would go there. While there was much beautiful stuff happening here (even in translation) and the triangular set-up was a great premise, I was confused about what it all meant as I finished the book.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

4 stars

I didn't fall in love with this like I did Lie With Me by this author (one of my all-time favorites). That said, I still mostly enjoyed this read. It's very quick, and Philippe Besson's unique prose is very present here. His style is very lyrical and reflective. His characters are flawed and very notably human. Our protagonist, Vincent, is not an overly likable character. He's still 16 and learning about the world, and, honestly, just a bit of a horny teenager. But this is a coming-of-age story of an imperfect person during a time of upheaval and war. Philippe Besson captures this reality very well and succinctly. I honestly found the side characters of Arthur (the love interest) and Marcel (the middle-aged friend and mentor of sorts) more interesting than Vincent. There's a "twist" at the end that was somewhat predictable, and, once again, Besson doesn't leave us with a happy ending. All in all, this is good, and Besson is an amazing author, but this is not my favorite work of his.

In the Absence of Men is on par with Lie with Me. Both are tender-hearted portrayals of young gay men. It also reminded me of In Memoriam as well. 10/10

I went into this one totally blind because I just love Besson's writing. I knew this would rip me apart and it absolutely did!

Philippe Besson is incredible at writing poetic slice of life love stories that will break your heart. There is such beauty in that though. In this book, we follow Vincent, a Parisian boy of sixteen in the summer of 1916. Born of the century, his mother told him it was a blessing. He lives by the beat of his heart's own drum and has this youthful certainty to him.

Vincent befriends an older man, Marcel, an author who is all too happy to provide world wisdom. They are drawn to one another because of the truths they see within each of them. He proves to be an instrumental person in molding his heart and mind. So does Arthur... Vincent's governess's son is home on leave from the war. Vincent's conversations with Marcel have awoken an understanding inside of himself and he opens his heart to Arthur.

The pure and raw emotion in Besson's writing is all so necessary. He floods you with so much beauty and prose so you FEEL this love Vincent has for Arthur. Told through Vincent's own eyes and letter correspondence between the three, this short read stole my heart.

Every now and again, I choose a book to read that reminds me that reading is not just about guilty pleasures. It can also expand your mind and views and teacch you things about the world. Usually those "experiments" fail abysmally and I prove that I am, at best, a casual reader and far less sophisticated than I think I am. And every now and again, I do land on a book that speaks to me as this one does. With grace and an understanding of what it means to live an informed existence. I realize that this book was translated from its native language, but its words spoke to me. So many times, I just sat and nodded and said "Yes. This." It is a quick read, but it is so full of frosty nuggets of knowledge and understanding. I am better for having read it.

I really loved this. It was a short read, but it was impactful. It really punched my in the gut at the end - and is something I will probably think about for a while. I love the way Besson writes. He has a way with words that really has an impact on you. I enjoyed part 2 and 3 the most. I loved reading the letters that were written. That ending still has me shocked, and I audible gasped.

While I am very grateful to have received this translation from NetGalley, I simply had a hard time finishing it. The style is poetic and literary, which is perhaps one of its saving graces. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep me entertained.

For me, the novel lacked a certain nuance, and the main character was terribly one-note throughout. I found him to be vapid, and the two main characters with which he interacts were poorly developed. It was hard to become interested in them. The relationship between Arthur and Vincent felt raw while the relationship between Vincent and Marcel felt unnecessary.

Lastly the good, I must admit the prose is one of beauty. At its core, ‘In the Absence of Men’ is an exploration of forbidden love and resilience in the face of adversary. It’s poetic and reflective, if a bit dense and opaque.

This book wrecked me, Completely undid me. If you’re a fan of In Memoriam by Alice Winn, this is very similar if a little more literary in its writing style. One of my favorite books possibly of all time, It’s a historical fiction novel but there are so many timeless and modern notes on longing, grief, identity, and love that you will feel intimately connected to the characters and their world. The prose is very intentional, with no word used without reason—potentially the work of the translator? So if I have any critique it would be that, as the prose can be hard to sink into at first, but you quickly get used to it.

“In The Absence of Men” is lush, lyrical, poignant and provocative. There will be many who protest and rage about the subject matter in this book. A love story/coming of age story told by a 16 year old boy and concerning men older than him. As someone who lived that and was the 16 year old boy at one point, I can attest to its truth and reality and will not be commenting on any other aspect of it for this review. What I will say is that this is a story so simple and beautifully told that it hurts. A tale of first love, loneliness, desire, loss, companionship and the forms those things take. The writing is flourishing and fanciful. Gorgeous. I loved this book. It spoke to the 16 year old I once was and the 42 year old I am now in extremely
Different ways and it was a wonderful read. Thomas of Netgalley and Simon and Schuster for the ARC.

Philippe Besson’s “In The Absence of Men” is my second Besson novel and while not as “enjoyable” as “Lie With Me,” it was still as touching and heartbreaking if not just too wordy and imbalanced (more on that in a moment.)

Absence follows three men — Vincent, sixteen and still too young to fight in the ongoing war, Marcel, a middle-aged writer and aristocrat, and Arthur, a young soldier on leave who starts a “secretive” affair with Vincent — across three distinctive parts. The second and third are my favorite given the way the story is presented: letters between these men and a more focused story as we head to the end. As I noted above, my favorite parts are also the shortest — I wish we had spent more time with two of these men in particular (Vincent and Arthur) in part 2. These letter between them feel real thanks to Besson’s writing but by the time I got to this, I was feeling a bit burned with the flowery and wordiness of the first part.

While Besson’s novel has stumbles here and there, this is a touching and heartbreaking novel of first love up against the destruction of war - destroying normalcy and life - and how love preserves despite it. Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

Philippe Besson does a fantastic job in writing this book, it had that element that I was looking for and was invested in what was going on. The characters had that element that I was expecting and enjoyed the setting of this. It was everything that I was hoping for and am excited to read more from Philippe Besson.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
IN THE ABSENCE OF MEN
While I recover from eye infection and wear my spectacles 🤓 I dove into this absolute treasure of a novel- a short, quick and beautiful telling of young queer love, friendship and loss.

Set in Paris during WW1 Vincent finds himself isolated- he is 16, an aristocrat and far too young to participate in the war. During a reprieve the young song of Vincent’s governess returns home and there connection between Arthur and Vincent is magnetic. They quickly give into their love both physically and emotionally (remember it was a crime then as we see our rights attacked AGAIN during our time- but I digress) and spend the rest of Arthur’s time, meeting in secret at night as their feelings grow stronger. By day- Vincent is mentored by the great author Marcel a closeted and beloved man himself, Marcel warns Vincent of the great trouble he could get into for his young relationship but also encourages him to experience love. Arthur is soon summoned back to the frontlines while Vincent is left behind Empty without his love and with Marcel moving to the countryside. As news breaks about Arthur’s fate, Vincent reconciles his life and his future in the midst of chaos.

Told in three parts: OFFERING, SEPARATION AND LOSS- this novel was short, sweet and had a surprise ending that had me shook. This book is out in June 2025 so put it on your radar! Let’s keep queer stories alive and thriving. 🩵 (if you’ve read young mungo, the boyhood of Cain, open heaven or Selamlik you’ll enjoy this literary novel)