ter to the author.” Well, consider that chal-
lenge already lost. I’ll just say it: I don’t
know you, André Aciman, but I adore your
writing. Another reviewer says, “Call Me By
Your Name may prove to be the beautiful
book of 2007. That is the first and only
important thing to say about André
Aciman’s debut novel, at least after a first
reading.”
This lovely book, fraught with the inef-
fable tension of first love, takes place in
memory. The main character, Elio, recounts
his tale of 20 years before, in the charged
atmosphere of the Italian Riviera, where he
and his parents live in the summer. His
father, a professor whom some might sus-
pect is a type of contemporary literature
prof Aciman knows well, always takes on a
grad student over the summer; this year,
the American “houseguest” Oliver proves a
potent attraction. The heat of summer and
the atmosphere of intellectual sparring mix
with Elio’s sexual awakening as he learns
the language of flirting and lust with anoth-
er young man. The delicately balanced,
splendidly strong prose hovers like desire
itself, every breath one step away from the
blissful surrender. I’ve hardly read anything
more romantic, more tender or filled with
longing and regret, than Call Me By Your
Name. You may think someone who hates
Romeo and Juliet couldn’t possibly care
about another romance, but you would be
wrong: This book trumps genres, cate-
gories, definitions. It rises above them and
dances, beautifully, on love, the thread that
binds and blinds humans bent — even
against our wills — on connection. — Suzi
Steffen
Tokyo Dreaming
AFTER DARK by Haruki Murakami.
KNOPF,
2007. HARDCOVER, $22.95. A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2007.
This slim, restrained little book is a far
cry from Haruki Murakami’s dense, vision-
ary The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle; it’s more
in line with the sweet,
straightforward
Norwegian Wood,
though even smaller
in scope. After Dark
follows a handful of
characters through
one night in Tokyo, as
19-year-old
Mari
Asai stays out all
night. At home, her
beautiful older sister
sleeps as she has for the past two months,
stepping out of life and into a strange som-
nolent realm. Mari stays out in the coffee
shops and diners of the city, reading, stay-
ing awake, balancing a waking life for her-
self and the sister she’s only once felt
close to.
On this particular night, Mari meets a
friendly young trombonist; he connects her
to Kaoru, a woman who runs a love hotel
and needs Mari’s help to deal with a pecu-
liar situation. Stories overlap, and Murakami
pulls us ever closer in, describing us — the
reader, the writer — as pure point of view
(and a cinematic one at that) as we watch
the strange events unfolding around sleep-
ing Eri. The tone in Eri’s parts of the story is
watchful, almost instructive, as Murakami
describes the sleeping girl’s existence; it
contrasts with the involved, sympathetic
perspective from which we see Mari.
After Dark presents the magic of a
strange night around a story of identity,
connection and loneliness. It’s a mood
piece colored with music (for Murakami, a
jazz fan, the song playing in a diner or café
18 DECEMBER 13, 2007
is always worth noting) and the comfort of
strangers. After Dark is vintage Murakami
in terms of the unusual world that seems
to overlap with our own, but it’s a slight
story, an appetizer of tone and atmos-
phere (the nighttime city is as much a
character as shy Mari). Out of this strange,
long night, Murakami carefully and
thoughtfully teases slender strands of plot
and character to create a quiet, intimate
piece that’s unexpectedly compelling and
unforgettable, like that last dream before
waking. — Molly Templeton
Sewer Pipe Dreams
THERE’S A (SLIGHT) CHANCE I
MIGHT BE GOING TO HELL by
Laurie Notaro. VILLARD, 2007. PAPERBACK, $13.95.
Author Laurie Notaro is a humorist
known for her essays about Idiot Girls,
dorky girls and fat brides. In her first fiction
book we meet plump, 30-something, hap-
pily married Maye Roberts. When Maye’s
husband Charlie takes a job at a college in
Washington state, Maye must leave her
close group of friends in Phoenix and
spend her days eating lunch alone in the
much smaller town of Spaulding, built
upon the sewer pipe industry. There she
meets an assortment of oddballs she
unwittingly turns into enemies: the book-
store clerk, the mailman, people she stalks
at the grocery store and Charlie’s boss’
wife, Rowena, who was not endeared by
Maye’s inadvertent striptease when they
first met at a faculty function. It’s Maye’s
obsession with making at least one friend
that drives the story. Her only hope of find-
ing acceptance is to run for — and win! —
the Spaulding Sewer Pipe Queen
Pageant. She knows she could win with
the help of the mysterious Ruby Spicer,
the greatest queen Spaulding has ever
known, but Ruby vanished decades ago.
The story takes a twist when Maye locates
a deranged, chain-smoking crackpot who
claims to be Ruby and uncovers a sinister
secret the town tried to forget. With the
help of her piano-playing dog, Maye
attempts to win over the town, give the
snobby Rowena her comeuppance and
clear Ruby’s name.
Notaro herself recently moved from
Phoenix to Eugene, and the Sewer Pipe
Queen pageant pulls its inspiration from our
own S.L.U.G. Queen traditions. The peculiar
people Maye encounters — a hell-on-
wheels mailman, militant vegetarians, a
book club/coven — could be your neigh-
bors. Despite a reliance on overlong
metaphors that frequently fall flat and a