Lie With Me – Philippe Besson (2017, trans. Molly Ringwald 2019) 148 pages
(For those of you who have noted the translator’s name – yes, that Molly Ringwald!)
Lie With Me tells the story of a closeted gay love affair between two teenage boys living in small town called Barbezieux, in southern France. The narrator is looking back on his relationship with a slightly older boy called Thomas Andrieu (the novella is dedicated to a man of the same name, but Lie With Me is presented as fiction):
“I recently returned to this place of my childhood, this village that I hadn’t set foot in for years. I went back with S. so that he would know. The grid was still there with the ancient wisteria, but the lime trees had been cut down, and the school closed a long time ago.
[…]
‘It must have taken great determination to have lifted yourself out.’
He didn’t say ‘ambition’ or ‘courage’ or ‘hate’. I told him: ‘It was my father who wanted it for me. I would have stayed in this childhood, in this cocoon.’”
The narrator knows he is different to his schoolfriends, and he knows why. It isn’t because his father is the schoolteacher, or because he is physically awkward, although these things don’t help. It is because he is gay:
“In this one regard, I would stop being the model child. I wouldn’t follow the pack. Out of instinct, I despised packs. That has never changed.”
Thomas is older than him, a mysterious and much cooler boy who both fits in and holds himself aloof:
“He also likes his solitude. It’s obvious. He speaks little, smokes alone. He has this attitude, his back up against the wall, looking up toward the sun or down at his sneakers, this manner of not quite being there in the world.”
The narrator is interested in Thomas but he seems entirely unobtainable. It is Thomas who makes the first move:
“I feel this desire swarming in my belly and running up my spine. But I have to constantly contain and compress it so that it doesn’t betray me in front of others. Because I’ve already understood that desire is visible.
Momentum too, I feel it. I sense a movement, a trajectory, something that will bring me to him.”
Lie With Me follows their relationship from beginning to end. There is an elegiac quality from the older, now successful writer – openly gay, well-travelled and living a cosmopolitan urbane life – looking back, but there is no sentimentality.
Instead, there is a pervading sadness, even following the first time they sleep together:
“I should be able to stay in this state of ecstasy, Or astonishment. Or let myself be overwhelmed by the incomprehensibility of it all. But the feeling that prevails the moment he disappears is that of being abandoned. Perhaps because it is already a familiar feeling.”
In this Guardian article, Tessa Hadley felt Lie With Me suffered from not enough focus on Thomas. The characterisation of the lover is thin, but personally I felt this worked. The first throes of romantic love, especially teen romantic love, can be very much wrapped up in how exhilarating it is for the individual. The narrator is waking up to the possibilities of life, the possibilities of gay life, far away from his childhood town and its constraints, and I felt his self-focus worked well.
Lie With Me is a coming of age tale, with the narrator realising not only who he is as a gay man, but of all that he could be, reflected in his lover’s eyes:
“In the end, love was only possible because he saw me not as who I was, but as the person I would become.”
madame bibi lophile recommends 
Who knew that Molly Ringwald was so talented? It does sound like a very moving story, and interesting how it seems to be more than fiction… So many books seem to be like that nowadays!
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I had no idea she was so accomplished! Yes, a lot seem to be occupying a space between fiction and autobiography these days, it’s interesting.
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I believe THAT Molly Ringwald has also published fiction; I seem to remember it getting decent reviews too.
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Amazing – what an achievement!
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This sounds very beautiful. It puts me in mind of Patrick Gale’s Take Nothing With You, which is also very beautifully written. I got half way through it last year and then, true to form, got distracted. So thank you for the reminder to go back and finish that one. I’ll be looking up Besson’s book too in due course.
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Liz, thank you for reminding me about Patrick Gale. He is a prolific Cornish resident and yet I’ve read so little of his despite having at least one unread on the shelves. I have no idea why – one of life’s great mysteries!
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Haha – I have plenty of those kind of mysteries on my shelves!
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I keep meaning to read Patrick Gale – I’m sure I’ve got one of his buried in the TBR. Thanks for the reminder Liz!
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My pleasure!
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You had me with that opening quote. Another one for the list. And kudos to Molly Ringwald!
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Glad you like the sound of it Sandra! I’ll look forward to hearing how you get on 🙂
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Interesting comment from Tessa Hadley. I wanted to like this more than I did but it didn’t quite gel for me. I suspect I should have read it in a single sitting.
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Maybe that’s it, but sometimes books just don’t do it for us. I read it in one go and felt caught up in their world but I think if I’d left it I would have struggled to go back to it.
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I loved this, the beauty of the writing and the intensity of feeling it captured. Tessa Hadley’s observation is an interesting one, but I completely agree with your commentary on it. We’re seeing this story from the perspective of the narrator, and Besson captures that all-consuming sense of first love really beautifully.
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Great to hear you enjoyed this too Jacqui. Intensity is definitely the word, he captures those adolescent feelings with real compassion.
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I LOVE Philippe Besson. You need to read In The Absence of Men.
I haven’t read this one but I’m sure it’s good.
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Thank you for the recommendation Emma! I’ll look out for In the Absence of Men.
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Sounds absolutely lovely. Bittersweet. I know I have one of his books somewhere but sadly not this one.
I also find your interpretation more pertinent than what Tessa Hadley says. It sounds like he does want to give the perspective of his young self.
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Bittersweet is exactly it, Caroline. It’s very touching, I’d like to read more by him.
He’s really good at capturing that perspective of a young man, and the self-focus that often involves!
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