“I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.” —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

A New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice

The critically acclaimed, internationally beloved novel by Philippe Besson—“this year’s Call Me By Your Name” (Vulture) with raves in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, Vanity Fair, Vogue, O, The Oprah Magazine, and Out—about an affair between two teenage boys in 1984 France, translated with subtle beauty and haunting lyricism by the iconic and internationally acclaimed actress and writer Molly Ringwald.

In this “sexy, pure, and radiant story” (Out), Philippe chances upon a young man outside a hotel in Bordeaux who bears a striking resemblance to his first love. What follows is a look back at the relationship he’s never forgotten, a hidden affair with a boy named Thomas during their last year of high school. Thomas is the son of a farmer; Philippe the son of a school principal. At school, they don’t acknowledge each other. But they steal time to meet in secret, carrying on a passionate, world-altering affair.

Despite the intensity of their attraction, from the beginning Thomas knows how it will end: “Because you will leave and we will stay,” he says. Philippe becomes a writer and travels the world, though as this “tender, sensuous novel” (The New York Times Book Review) shows, he never lets go of the relationship that shaped him, and every story he’s ever told.

“Beautifully translated by Ringwald” (NPR), this is “Philippe Besson’s book of a lifetime...an elegiac tale of first, hidden love” (The New Yorker).

Originally published in France in 2017 as Arrãete avec tes mensonges.

“I remember the movement of his hips pressing against the pinball machine. This one sentence had me in its grip until the end. Two young men find each other, always fearing that life itself might be the villain standing in their way. A stunning and heart-gripping tale.”
—André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name

“This is a gorgeous fever dream of a book. Ringwald's translation does elegant justice to Besson’s balance of beauty and despair, and to his interrogations of memory and longing. Lie With Me positively glows in the dark.”
—Rebecca Makkai, author of The Great Believers

"Lie With Me is an exquisite whisper that lingers long after you've finished reading it."
—Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend

“In spare yet evocative prose, elegantly translated by Molly Ringwald, Philippe Besson relates the erotic awakening of two adolescent boys in a small French town in the 1980s. Lie With Me captures their world with the grainy poignancy of an old high school yearbook, while movingly  conveying the quintessential human dramas of longing, love, and letting go.”
—Caroline Weber, author of Proust's Duchess: How Three Celebrated Women Captured the Imagination of Fin-de-siècle Paris

“The uncanny thrill of Philippe Besson’s Lie With Me rises up from Molly Ringwald’s elegant translation with the intensity of meeting a stranger on a train who tells you a single unforgettable story and then leaves. And his voice haunts me still.”
—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel and The Queen of the Night

"A timeless love story, written with the unmistakable ache of truth. Molly Ringwald's translation is as clear and beautiful as the story it depicts. You'll read it in a night, but its exquisite heartbreak will linger."
—David Ebershoff, author of The Danish Girl and The 19th Wife

“At first erotic and joyous, ultimately elegiac and haunting, Lie With Me is a deceptively slender book as big as life itself.”
—Rumaan Alam, the author of That Kind of Mother and Rich and Pretty

“This gorgeous, aching novel captures all of the fear and freedom of young desire. Besson’s sharp, compressed prose gets right to the heart of what it means to have to fall in love in secret. Thanks to Ringwald’s pitch-perfect translation, this affecting and sexy elegy may well be the best gay love story in contemporary fiction. I dare you to read it without crying.”
—Christopher Bollen, author of Orient and The Destroyers

“I read this novel from start to finish without stopping, steadily undone by its honesty, humility and grace. It’s the rare kind of story that reminds you—deep in a place you’ve almost forgotten—what a miracle it is, and what a heartbreak, to fall in love even once.”
—Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror