With incandescent prose and vibrant imagery, André Aciman evokes the rich, kaleidoscopic and sensual experiences of his coming-of-age in his memoir, Roman Year.
Just before the Six Years War broke out between Israel and Egypt, 16-year-old Aciman fled Egypt with his deaf mother and younger brother. Packing all their belongings in 31 suitcases, the once prosperous family moved from an Egyptian mansion to a former brothel on an ill-lit, noisy Roman street. During their first afternoon in that shabby apartment in a strange place, “waves of gloom” wash over the family, and the young Aciman feels a “persistent, undefinable numbness that eventually overtakes you and won’t let go.” Aciman doesn’t like the street, Via Clelia, nor does he like Rome: “I belonged elsewhere, but I didn’t know where.”
While his brother and his mother adapt to their new lives, Aciman buries himself in books and spends much of his year reading: Proust, Woolf and Joyce are among the authors who enchant him. Eventually, as he and his brother explore Rome, Aciman’s affection for the city starts to develop. After he spends Christmas break in Paris, wandering the streets of the City of Light, whiling away time in cafes, visiting Shakespeare and Company and doing research for a study of literary existentialists, Aciman feels as if he might have found his elsewhere. He reluctantly returns to Rome, where he is surprised to find that his love for the Eternal City blossoms, in part because of his intimacy with several women and his connection to the texts that he reads.
The Call Me By Your Name author glories in the little moments when “there were colors everywhere, everything and everyone was beautiful.” At the end of the year, as he and his family prepare to move to New York City, he finds that “Rome never asked to be loved . . . and I wouldn’t know that I loved it or wanted to love it until I was about to lose it.” Roman Year is a gem of a memoir that sparkles with light that reflects off every facet of Aciman’s pivotal year.
