Among the themes that recur in the splendid works of André Aciman (Enigma Variations; Find Me) is the belief that love is possible anywhere, and one should embrace it wherever one finds it. That's never been more evident than in the trio of unapologetically romantic novellas that constitute Room on the Sea. Another staple of Aciman's work is Italy, most famously in Call Me by Your Name. Such is the case again here, starting with "The Gentleman from Peru," in which eight young Americans staying at a hotel in southern Italy meet a 60-ish man who has the ability to heal people by laying a hand upon them. More mysteriously, he has a remarkable connection to one of the young women, of whom he claims to know "many things."
He sure does, and the revelation couldn't be more beautiful. Further delicate beauty infuses the titular work, in which a male lawyer and female therapist in their 60s, both married to others, meet during jury duty in New York and discover a mutual passion for Italy, and much else. The closing piece, "Mariana," is a jilted woman's lament, a letter to the man she met at a retreat in Italy. She's still smarting, she writes, from "the speed with which you flipped off the switch on me." Aciman is his usual urbane self throughout, discoursing on love's vicissitudes. "Sometimes striving is all we have," the therapist states. The perpetual striving for human contact assumes achingly definable features in this accessibly philosophical work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer