Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli
Alt text/image description: Overlapping pink-hued images of a young, attractive man with curly dark hair on a sky blue background are bordered by yellow boxes bearing the book’s title
Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli is set to be published by Sceptre Books/Hodder and Stoughton on 24th April 2025. Initially published in Italy in 1989, two years before Tondelli’s death, this edition is translated from the Italian by Simon Pleasance.
Told in three movements, Separate Rooms follows Leo, an Italian writer coping with the death of his partner Thomas, a German musician. Melancholy and nostalgic, the story follows Leo's recounting of memories of his time with Thomas as he travels from place to place, trying to escape his feelings.
Although told from Leo's perspective, it quickly becomes clear that this is just as much Thomas’ story (if not moreso) as we begin to see just how important Thomas is to Leo.
As Leo recounts these memories to himself, a picture quickly builds up of the relationship between the two men, especially in the context of the time and public attitudes towards queer people. One thing that really struck me was how out of sequence and almost randomly the memories come to Leo, but this just makes it feel all the more realistic. It is at times hard to keep up with where in the story's timeline each anecdote takes place, and what is happening in the present, but Tondelli is generally very successful with this.
A lot of the language is clearly of the time it was written, and I can't imagine it being used today, however it is unclear if this is down to Tondelli or the translator’s interpretation of the Italian. This is more forgivable when it comes to Leo's attitudes towards others in the story. He is at times thoroughly unlikeable and I couldn't help but feel that Thomas deserved better, in death, as well as after and before it. In fact, the further into the story I read, the less sympathetic I felt towards Leo.
The second of the three movements, Leo's World, is the longest and, to me, the weakest. It meanders and confuses and often comes across as jarring. Despite this, the final sections before the movement's end (the sections with Leo frequenting the Blue Boy club and the old man on the plane) are some of the strongest in the entirety of the novel.
I have to say that I left this book feeling confused (not necessarily in a bad way), and I definitely get the impression that it is one I will be thinking over again and again long after I finished it.
Alt text/image description: Overlapping pink-hued images of a young, attractive man with curly dark hair on a sky blue background are bordered by yellow boxes bearing the book’s title
