Find Me

A Novel

By: André Aciman

Narrated by: Michael Stuhlbarg

Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

2019 Vogue Magazine Best Books of the Year
2019 Amazon.com Best Books of the Year

"[Narrator Michael Stuhlbarg's] elegant performance and Aciman's sensitive writing keep things touching without ever being sentimental. Wonderful listening." (AudioFile magazine, Earphones Award winner)

This program is read by Michael Stuhlbarg, the actor who played Professor Samuel Perlman in Luca Guadagnino's critically acclaimed film Call Me by Your Name.

A bonus conversation between Michael Stuhlbarg and André Aciman is included at the end of the program.

In this spellbinding exploration of the varieties of love, the author of the worldwide best seller Call Me by Your Name revisits its complex and beguiling characters decades after their first meeting.

No novel in recent memory has spoken more movingly to contemporary listeners about the nature of love than André Aciman’s haunting Call Me by Your Name. First published in 2007, it was hailed as “a love letter, an invocation...an exceptionally beautiful book” (Stacey D’Erasmo, The New York Times Book Review). Nearly three quarters of a million copies have been sold, and the book became a much-loved, Academy Award-winning film starring Timothée Chalamet as the young Elio and Armie Hammer as Oliver, the graduate student with whom he falls in love.

In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father, Samuel, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train with a beautiful young woman upends Sami’s plans and changes his life forever.

Elio soon moves to Paris, where he, too, has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a New England college professor with a family, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return trip across the Atlantic.

Aciman is a master of sensibility, of the intimate details and the emotional nuances that are the substance of passion. Find Me brings us back inside the magic circle of one of our greatest contemporary romances to ask if, in fact, true love ever dies.

©2019 André Aciman (P)2019 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

"Narrator Michael Stuhlbarg's rough, raspy voice lends a whispery intimacy to this sequel to Call Me by Your Name...." (AudioFile Earphone Award)

Was hoping for more

Ok, like so many I was ready for a further continuation of Call Me By Your Name. Alas, this really isn’t it. The portion of the 200 plus page book devoted to Elio and Oliver is a mere 11 pages, that’s it. Granted I was satisfied with were we left them at this end of this book, but there was so much more than we got, that needed to be delved into. But based on the words of Mr. Aciman, this is it for our heros.
The first two thirds of the book is about Mr Perlman and a much younger he meets on the train. Mr Aciman has relayed how this sort of encounter happened to him and this is more a less of allowing himself to see how it might have played out. If he wanted to do a book about this, he should have just left Elio and Oliver our of it. We learn a bit more about Elio and Oliver’s life apart from one another in the next 2 sections before the final 11 pages.
Michael Stuhlbarg’s reading was nice but it felt odd hearing him reading the thoughts of Elio and Oliver.
I’m glad there was a happy ending of sorts but I’m now left wanting more.

Who's talking now?

In my opinion this sequel to "Call Me by Your Name" was interesting, but not quite so compelling as its antecedent. I enjoyed the story--really, it's stories plural, but my enjoyment was compromised by my frequent inability to know who was talking in any given conversation. I really think that the narrative could have used more than one narrator.

All in all, some who enjoyed the first book will like this one, others will not. I thought it was okay, and I don't feel that I wasted my time listening to it.

Heart wrenching, emotional...

This story is not a linear continuation of "Call Me By Your Name". It is written with the same lyrical tone and is an examination of the paths we take...what is expected of us versus what makes us truly happy. The characters are connected by a sort of longing to live a life other than the one they are living. Relatable and heartbreaking story. The narration was superb!

Not disappointed!

Originally, the idea of these two people that are each more the other than they are themselves being separated for so many years completely turned me away. I took some time in between the two books, not quite ready for Find Me after Call Me By Your Name, especially as I wasn't sure the sequel was necessary. But it is. The sequel is almost as wonderful as the first book.

There's a resounding theme throughout that, even though the two are with other people and even happy, they never really left each other after that summer.

The narrator, who plays Elio's father in the film, is an incredible and passionate story teller. You'll love this book.

Not a sequel per se

The book is in the first person of characters and shares stories of Samuel, Elio and Oliver and how their lives have changed years since that summer when Oliver has visited the family. If you are thinking this is a continuation of Elio and Oliver...think again. The stories of each character was okay but Oliver’s story could of been better explained to me it was kind of all over the place with the characters. I’m
only giving a 3 rating because I felt Elios and Oliver’s story were cut short. The characters feel real when read by the first person and Michael Stulbarg who narrated this did a great job performing these characters especially his character Samuel. Recommend if you read the last two chapters of the first book if you need a refresher for this book.

Beautiful.

Beautiful and poetic like the original. I want to live in this world. Relish it.

Diverse Attraction

I love the book for so many reasons, but what stands out for me is how raw the characters are, the hetero & homosexual romances, and a great narrator. I just prefer to really love a book with seceral narrators is all!

A wonderfully unexpected continuation

Aciman is a brilliantly talented writer. His prose is often hypnotic. It's easy to get lost in his words and his worlds.

'Find Me' is not your typical sequel. The structure is quite different from its predecessor, but its heart and subtext remain intact.
The moments you're waiting for come late in the book, and are well worth waiting for.

'Find Me' is a warm and welcome visit with characters we've grown to love, but just don't expect them to do what you want them to. Forget what you think should happen or will happen, and just sit back and enjoy the beauty of what does happen.

Aciman's latest is every bit as lyrical and magical as it's predecessor, maybe even more so.
Stuhlbarg's narration is wonderful.

Not the sequel I had hoped for

Andre Aciman’s prose is lovely, but the story itself is confusing. The first few chapters find Professor Sami Perlman in a love affair with Miranda, a much younger woman. When we meet Elio again, he meets his father’s lover and the the story jumps to his affair several years later with Michel, who is much older than Elio. Only in the final chapter do we get the much desired reunion of Elio and Oliver and it is much too brief.

Michael Stuhlbarg’s narration draws you into the story. The transition from one character’s story to the next is not immediately apparent and I found myself confused each time such transition happened and had to restart the story to understand whose tale - Sami, Elio or Oliver - was being told.

Love the author!

I genuinely love André Aciman’s narrative style. It really draws you in and describes everything in such a perfect way! Now, onto the actual book; if you’re looking for an in-depth continuation of Elio and Olver’s story, this is not the book for you. Only in the last chapter they meet again, which is 95% through the book. The book’s timeline spans over 20 years, with each chapter focusing on a different character and period of time. I didn’t much enjoy the first chapter, which centered around Elio’s dad’s affair, but I did enjoy the two following chapters, one about Elio and one about Oliver, as well as the beautiful last chapter where they finally meet again.