The novel's power lies in the fusion of a deeply personal story hardly unfamiliar to many a gay man. In sheer bittersweetness, 'Lie' more resembles the 2013 prize-winning gay film 'Last Summer,' also about childhood sweethearts, except that in 'Lie' bitter wins out resoundingly. That's what sometimes happens with writing this hot to the touch: it gets compared to something else if only to tame it.

It's been called the French 'Brokeback Mountain,' to which it bears only the most passing resemblance (though Besson is said to have seen the film every day for a week when it was new), and to 'Call Me By Your Name,' to which it bears none. It warrants noting that in its even younger life in English - it's just been released in a superb translation by Molly Ringwald (yes, that one) - it has also engendered some preposterous bafflegab. 'It took Besson his whole life to write it,' Lauren Collins reports in a recent short New Yorker interview with the author, 'and, when he was done, he thought that he would never be able to write again.' It's as immediately involving and heart-breaking a tale of gay first love as I can recall, credibly said to consume readers, as it did me, as much as it did the author. It's a wonder not just of concision (160 pages), but also of compression and agonizing levels of compassion. 'Lie with Me' (Scribner) is Philippe Besson's 18th book, written in 2016 in what one suspects was one of those seizures of composition that produce such searing stuff. Some good writers learn to write shorter.

Philippe besson young