Separate Rooms by Pier Vittorio Tondelli and translated by Simon Pleasance is a beautifully introspective novel about love, loss, and identity. The story follows Leo, a writer mourning the death of his lover Thomas, as he travels through Europe, reflecting on their relationship and his own sense of self. Tondelli’s prose is poetic and deeply emotional, capturing the complexities of grief and memory. It’s a quiet, meditative journey that resonates with anyone who has loved and lost. A powerful exploration of intimacy and solitude, Separate Rooms is both haunting and profoundly human.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers Hodder & Stoughton for the opportunity to read this e-ARC.

Originally published in 1989, Separate Rooms was the final novel by Italian author Pier Vittorio Tondelli, released just two years before his passing from AIDS.

Now, it is being published in the UK on April 24th, featuring an introduction by André Aciman, the bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name.

Separate Rooms follows Leo, an Italian writer who, at the beginning of the novel, loses his former boyfriend, Thomas, a German musician to AIDS. Unable to watch Thomas slowly die, Leo embarks on a journey across Europe and then to America in an attempt to hide, almost running away from the hardships of adulthood, to rediscover himself.

Throughout this process of self-discovery, grief, and loss, he reflects on their relationship. He recalls their first encounter, his desire to live separately whilst still together (separate rooms), and reflects on his own behavior—not only in this relationship but in a previous one. He revisits memories of his childhood, family dynamics, friendships, and his relationship with God and religion. Most importantly, he contemplates his deep need for solitude. The novel is structured in three movements through his introspective journey.

However, the time jumps can be confusing. I’m unsure whether this was due to the formatting of the e-ARC or if it’s an aspect of the author's narrative, but it occasionally made me disorientated. The pacing, particularly in the second movement, felt slow and dragged at times. I found that I was struggling and had to push myself, which is why I couldn’t give it a full five stars. Fortunately, the pacing picked up, again, in the third movement.

This was a beautifully written novel about self-reflection, grief, and finding oneself after loss. Leo is flawed—at times even toxic, if I might say —but there is no denying the love he had for Thomas.
Tondelli’s writing is melancholic, and it deeply moved me. There are parta that are intense, immersing us fully into Leo's thoughts and emotions.

At its core, Separate Rooms is a story about love and its complexities—how easy it is to hurt the ones we love and how love alone isn’t always enough if two people see relationships differently. Leo’s journey feels like a late coming-of-age story, as he struggles with self-acceptance in his 30s while reflecting on all he has left behind.
There is so much to analyze and discuss in this novel, from its themes of love, solitude, grief, loss, self-acceptance, self-reflection, awareness, and the portrayal of queer love and identity during a difficult era.

I think it's amazing how Tondelli was able to capture and write the complexities and struggles of being gay in the 1980s. Some passages deeply touch me, such as:
"Now he had to give serious thought to the notion of living together with another man. But he had no models to follow, no experience to recycle and fall back on in this stage of their relationship. He knew that the love he still felt for Thomas would not be enough on its own. (...) Living together meant believing in values that neither of them was capable of recognising. How would their love end? Would they have no option but to normalise a relationship that society was, in fact, incapable of accepting as something normal?"

It seems that Separate Rooms is being adapted into a film. While I’m usually not a fan of book-to-film adaptations, I’m curious to see how they bring this story to life.

I just couldn't get into this. I didn't like the writing style and found myself skim reading to just get through it. It felt like everything happened too fast and that nothing happened at all