This contemporary twist on Brief Encounter is a tender meditation on what might have been.
'Maybe we love people because they won't let us know them.' A summer's evening in Manhattan.
Nothing - not cold drinks not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night
drugstore - can undo the heat's hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news his
husband filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject line: 'From
Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Carol - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left
a message he'd like her to relay. Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park
Grill is agreed. Carol fulfilling Paul's final request wonders how she will tell Julian of a
life - and a love - he has no idea existed. A life encased in a flash drive containing
multitudes. Readers adored Stowaways : 'I have unashamedly fallen in love with Andre
Aciman's writing. . . I couldn't stop reading until the very last page.' 'It's a really
beautiful book of two people talking about love.' 'Poignant heart-warming stimulating and
challenging. All readers should recognise something of themselves in this story.' 'I had no
idea what to expect going into this book but in true André Aciman style I was floored by the
sheer beauty of it.'
