In Edmund Whites most moving novel yet an American living in Paris finds hislife transformed by an unexpected love affair.Austin Smith is pushing fifty loveless... » 

In Edmund Whites most moving novel yet an American living in Paris finds hislife transformed by an unexpected love affair.Austin Smith is pushing fifty loveless and drifting until one day he meetsJulien a much younger married Frenchman. In the beginning the lovers onlyimpediments are the comic clashes of culture age and temperament. Beforelong however the past begins to catch up with them. In a desperate quest tosave health and happiness they move from Venice to Key West from Montreal inthe snow to Providence in the rain. But it is amid the bleak baking sands ofthe Sahara that their love is pushed to its ultimate crisis. «