‘Call Me By Your Name’ book sequel plot details, release date revealed
There's good news for fans of Elio's dad...
By Will Stroude
Words: Will Stroude
While Armie Hammer cast doubt over whether a Call Me By Your Name movie sequel will ever see the light of day this week, there’s one thing we do know for sure: Oliver and Elio’s story will continue in a follow-up to André Aciman’s original 2007 book.
Aciman delighted fans when he revealed in December he was working on a new chapter in the pair’s passionate love story, and now we’ve been given more details about the eagerly-anticpated novel – including a release date and some mouth-watering plot teasers.
Entitled Find Me and set for release on 29 October, Vulture reports that the book will focus not only Elio and Oliver’s adult lives years after the events of that hazy summer in Italy, but also explore the life of another beloved character from the original: Elio’s father, Sam Perlman.
Played in the film adaptation by Michael Stuhlbarg, Mr. Perlman’s tear-jerking conversation with son Elio about remaining open to love after heartbreak provides the emotional core of Call Me By Your Name, and given the veiled allusions to the character’s own sexuality, it certainly seems like the supportive father’s own story provides a rich vein of material to tap into.
A statement from publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux reads: “In Find Me, Aciman shows us Elio’s father Samuel, now divorced, on a trip from Florence to Rome to visit Elio, who has become a gifted classical pianist. A chance encounter on the train leads to a relationship that changes Sami’s life definitively.”
“Elio soon moves to Paris where he too has a consequential affair, while Oliver, now a professor in northern New England with sons who are nearly grown, suddenly finds himself contemplating a return visit to Europe.”
Speaking to Vulture, Aciman opened up about his motivation for writing the sequel, admitting that the world of Call Me By Your Name “never left” him and that the success of the big screen adaptation inspired him to continue the story.
“Though I created the characters and was the author of their lives, what I never expected was that they’d end up teaching me things about intimacy and about love that I didn’t quite think I knew until I’d put them down on paper,” he said.
“The film made me realise that I wanted to be back with them and watch them over the years — which is why I wrote Find Me.”
Find Me is set to be published on 29 October, 2019.