The Gentleman from Peru maintains a dreamy feel throughout. Photo / supplied
The Gentleman from Peru maintains a dreamy feel throughout. Photo / supplied
When their boat breaks down in the Tyrrhenian sea, a group of friends take refuge at a hotel on the Amalfi Coast while repairs are made. In contrast to the mostly older, more staid patrons, this group intend to enjoy their impromptu stay. “They were not the only Americans inthe hotel, but the youngest and the loudest.”
In the dining room, the group notice an elegant white-bearded stranger, who always sits on his own, a notebook face down on his table. They wonder if he is an assassin. One day he comes over, and with a quick touch, relieves one of the party of a niggling shoulder injury. Invited for a drink, he reveals knowledge of each that no one could know, including that one was a twin who cannibalised his sibling in utero like a shark. Initially thinking it’s some kind of trick, they realise he is the real deal.
Raúl, the mysterious gentleman of the title, has been coming here every year since he was a child. He talks of reincarnation, of shadow selves and the lugentes campi, a place where souls mourn for unfulfilled love. Margot, one of the party, has dinner with Raúl alone before he takes her off for walks and to show her a house he owns nearby.
Even though it’s a novella that can be read in a few hours, it maintains a dreamy feel. Time stands still here, says Raúl, and that sense is passed into the storytelling. Writing such a sunbaked fairytale is a high-wire act, but Aciman, who wrote the book that became the much-admired film Call Me By Your Name, largely pulls it off. A longer digression in the second half, the rest of the group forgotten, has a perhaps predictable loop-back to Margot.
How much readers buy into the story may depend on their enjoyment of magical romance and suspension of disbelief, but it’s a pleasant and assured journey, one that probably will also soon be coming to screen near you.
The Gentleman from Peru by André Aciman (Faber, $29.99) is out now.
