"At once an unflinchingly beautiful novel about queer desire, summer days, and casual sex that is also an elegy to friendship, grief, and lovers lost. Startlingly brave and brilliantly told, I devoured each page not sure what to expect next. The Living Realm belongs in the firmament of great gay fiction." —Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of John of John

In this slim but expansive novel from the acclaimed author Jordan Tannahill, a British archaeologist living in Berlin begins to see his dead lovers in a cruising forest on the city's outskirts.

While cruising one evening by Teufelssee, a small glacial lake in the Grunewald forest on the edge of Berlin, a man spots a handsome stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to his former lover. Only, Lukas died nearly thirty years ago. Yet the man cannot shake the feeling that it was really Lukas he saw.

Along with his friends Gabor and Birgit, the man spends the long, hot summer by the lake, observing the comings and goings of their fellow nudists, as well as their beloved Elsa, a boar who lives along its fringes. He also continues to encounter Lukas, and then other lost lovers as well. As he attempts to make sense of the strange occurrences and learns more of Teufelssee, he finds himself venturing deeper into the mystery of the forest, leading him to question not just his sanity but the nature of time itself.

Written with the lyricism and erudition that have made Jordan Tannahill an internationally celebrated playwright, The Living Realm is a dreamlike novel of epic feeling, and an elegy to the ways our lives become entangled with history, the natural world, and those we love.

Jordan Tannahill is a playwright, novelist, and director. His debut novel, Liminal, received France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was short-listed for the 2021 Giller Prize and adapted into a limited series for the BBC. His most recent play, Prince Faggot, made its world premiere in New York City in 2025 to widespread acclaim; his debut feature film, Rapture, is in production. He has twice won Canada’s Governor General's Literary Award for Drama, and his work has been presented at the Young Vic and Sadler's Wells Theatres in London, the Kitchen and Lincoln Center in New York City, the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, and elsewhere. He lives in New York City with his husband.