The Living Realm

‘Beautiful, hugely ambitious’ GARTH GREENWELL

‘I devoured each page’ DOUGLAS STUART

‘Hypnotic’ TASH AW

The lyrical new novel from Jordan Tannahill, the acclaimed author of The Listeners, follows a British archaeologist in Berlin who begins to see his dead lovers at a lake and cruising forest on the outskirts of the city.

While cruising one evening by Teufelssee, a small glacial lake in the Grunewald forest on the edge of Berlin, a man spots a handsome stranger who bears an uncanny resemblance to his former lover. Only, Lukas died nearly thirty years ago. Yet the man cannot shake the feeling that it was really Lukas he saw.

Over the course of one long, hot summer with friends and lovers at the lake, this first sighting sets off a string of strange encounters. As the man learns more of Teufelssee, he finds himself venturing deeper into the mystery of the surrounding forest. He begins to wonder if these meetings are real or imagined, if they take place in the past or the present, and what they might reveal about the nature of time itself and his place within its flow.

Part ghost story, part love story, this ecstatic, sexy and exquisitely written novel offers an elegy to the ways our lives become entangled with history, the natural world and those we love.

‘An unflinchingly beautiful novel … belongs in the firmament of great gay fiction’ DOUGLAS STUART, author of John of John

‘Playful yet melancholic … asks what it means to build a life and a community in the margins’ TASH AW, author of The South

‘A novel that rises to its subject: the whole of life’ GARTH GREENWELL, author of Small Rain

Reviews

Praise for The Living Realm:

‘It’s rare to read a novel that expresses so powerfully the wonder of existing in time alongside others: the possibilities this offers for loving and being loved, the obligations love imposes. The final pages of this beautiful, hugely ambitious book amazed me. The Living Realm is a novel that rises to its subject: the whole of life’ Garth Greenwell, author of Small Rain

‘At once an unflinchingly beautiful novel about queer desire, summer days, and casual sex, that is also an elegy to friendship, grief, and lovers lost. Startlingly brave and brilliantly told, I devoured each page not sure what to expect next. The Living Realm belongs in the firmament of great gay fiction’ Douglas Stuart, author of John of John

‘A ghost story, a meditation on ageing and the passage of time, a celebration of queer Berlin – Jordan Tannahill captures so much in a slim, hypnotic novel. Playful yet melancholic, The Living Realm tests the boundaries between the real and the unreal, and asks what it means to build a life and a community in the margins’ Tash Aw, author of The South

About the author

Jordan Tannahill is a Canadian playwright and novelist. Two of his plays have won a Governor General’s Literary Award, Canada’s highest state honour for literature. His debut novel, Liminal, won France's 2021 Prix des Jeunes Libraires. His second novel, The Listeners, was a Canadian bestseller, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize 2021 and adapted into a major BBC drama series.