Charming Young Man
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- €5.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Eliot Schrefer comes an exuberant YA historical coming-of-age novel about a rising star French pianist, navigating his way into high society as he explores his sexuality. Perfect for fans of Last Night at the Telegraph Club and The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue.
They say Léon Delafosse will be France’s next great pianist. But despite his being the youngest student ever accepted into the prestigious Paris Conservatory, there’s no way an impoverished musician can make his way in 1890s Paris without an outside patron.
Young gossip columnist Marcel Proust takes Léon under his wing, and the boys game their way through an extravagant new world. When the larger-than-life Count Robert de Montesquiou-Fézensac offers his patronage, Léon’s dreams are made real. But the closer he gets to becoming France’s next great thing, the further he strays from his old country life he shared with his family and his best friend, Félix . . . a boy he might love.
With each choice Léon makes, he must navigate a fine line between two worlds—or risk losing them both.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this inventive historical novel by Schrefer (The Darkness Outside Us), titular charmer Léon Delafosse, a financially downtrodden teen piano prodigy, attempts to navigate turn-of-the-century high-society Paris. To cover his conservatory expenses, Léon needs a society patron, but his socially awkward tendencies and his goal to "have the Léon part of himself disappear into the music" make fostering connections difficult. At almost 17, he's running out of time to secure a patron, until he meets upper-middle-class Marcel Proust, whose job as a gossip columnist can provide Léon better access to members of high society. Léon fears that his attraction to men, which he can barely admit to himself, may be his downfall, but as he gets to know Marcel and his would-be patron Count Robert de Montesquiou, who are both open about their sexuality, this new world that Marcel introduces him to proves as attractive as it is tricky. Schrefer's Léon Delafosse, who is based on the real French pianist of the same name, is not only likable, but sensitive and resilient, and his perseverance amid dramatic ups and downs on his path toward happiness is engaging. All characters are white. Ages 13–up.
