Stop making up your mind

Driving through his native land, the narrator sees a silhouette at the turn of the street - a face whose resemblance to his first love strikes him in the heart.

The story began twenty-five years ago with the meeting of two completely different teenagers: one, somewhat shy, the son of a teacher, a diligent student, and an experienced reader; the other is a peasant child, rebellious, charismatic, and mysterious, a favorite of girls.

Their attraction is immediate and unequivocal. Their secret embrace takes place with trepidation, filled with guilt and denial. The mystery that surrounds them only intensifies the passion. But Toma cannot express his feelings and accept himself as he is. He disappears from the narrator's life as suddenly as he appears, leaving young Philip a wound of his first love that will never heal.

Years later, when this story ends, the author learns with infinite sadness that Thomas, who was so bright in his youth, tried all his life to hinder his nature, to hide it from everyone, thereby hastening his tragic end.

In an age of new possibilities, two destinies unfold before our eyes: one of a young man on the verge of denying the obvious, a life of lies and fear, and the other of becoming a novelist and storyteller.

Their love story is a complex and poignant observation, free from any moral condemnation, about how difficult it is to be yourself within specific social or family frameworks. And is a happy life possible within these frameworks?

Why should you read Stop Your Fiction?
It is an autobiographical story about finding and accepting one's own identity.
The highly social story is based on the real story of Philippe Besson.
The novel won the Maison de la Presse and Psychologies prizes in 2017.
Editors' Choice of The New York Times Book Review.

About Philippe Besson:
Philippe Besson is a French writer. A law graduate inspired to write his first novel, En l'absence des hommes, by reading the stories of veterans from the First World War. The book in which Marcel Proust became the central character won the Emmanuel Robles Prize. Besson's second novel, Son Frère, was shortlisted for the Prix Femina and was adapted into a film by Patrice Chereau in 2003.