Bright Monday

"A gorgeous—and sexy—evocation of lost love, youthful longing, and the way that time folds and expands many times during a life . . . Bright Monday is utterly delicious." —Lauren Groff The story of a 1990s romance between two men rekindled decades later in Milan—from two-time PEN/Faulkner finalist David Leavitt, “a phenomenal and prescient writer” (Justin Torres). Adam is translating into English his Italian friend Valeria’s new novel—a surprise bestseller she published under a pseudonym. Two days before he is scheduled to return home from Milan, he leans down to pet an especially sweet terrier and looks up to behold Francesco, the charismatic, rakish architect he hasn’t seen in three decades. When Francesco invites Adam to an Easter lunch with his family, including his wife and grandchildren, Adam finds himself drawn back into the affair that began in New York City at the height of the AIDS pandemic. Alighting alternately on two historical moments, two cities, and two very different pandemics, Bright Monday explores with humor and compassion the ripple effects of a youthful entanglement born during one public health crisis and resurrected in the wake of another—a meditation on youth and memory shadowed by secrecy and denial yet illuminated by the persistent and bright possibility of rebirth.