L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2019 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 28 SEATTLE ITALIAN COMMUNITY W hen the com- i n g - o f - a g e film, Call Me By Your Name, pre- miered in 2017, it was a huge hit, eventually grossing nearly $42 million. The dreamy romance set in an Italian seaside town in the 1980s involved two young men: Elio, whose father is an archeologist, and his father's graduate assistant Oliver, who joins the family for six weeks to help out on a research project. Directed by Luca Guadagnino, the film was nom- inated for three Academy Awards including best film and best actor. It won the Oscar for best adapted screenplay, which was awarded to then 89-year-old James Ivory, well-known for his f i l m s , A R o o m w i t h a V i e w ( 1 9 8 5 ) a n d M a u r i c e ( 1 9 8 7 ) , among others. The film was pri- marily shot in Crema, and in the surrounding region of Cremona. Call Me By Your Name was b a s e d o n t h e 2 0 0 7 n o v e l b y A n d r é A c i m a n , t h e s o n o f Sephardic Jews of Turkish and Italian origin. Aciman grew up in Alexandria, Egypt, where his r e l a t i v e s h a d i m m i g r a t e d i n 1905. Because they were not native-born, the family had been denied Egyptian citizenship. By the 1960s, feeling unwel- c o m e d i n E g y p t , t h e f a m i l y received Italian citizenship and m o v e d t o R o m e i n 1 9 6 5 . I n 1968, they moved again, this time to New York City, where A c i m a n e a r n e d a b a c h e l o r ' s degree in English, followed by a masters and doctoral degree in c o m p a r a t i v e l i t e r a t u r e , b o t h from Harvard University. T o d a y , A c i m a n , a P r o u s t scholar, teaches at the Graduate Center of the City University of N e w Y o r k . H e l i v e s i n Manhattan with his wife; the couple has three children. He is the author of five novels and an e q u a l n u m b e r o f n o n f i c t i o n works. This fall, Aciman published his new novel, Find Me, the s e q u e l t o C a l l M e B y Y o u r N a m e . T h e b o o k p i c k s u p a decade after the first novel ends, opening with Elio's father on a train to Rome. En route, the father meets a young woman and the story takes off from there. Aciman was recently in S e a t t l e t o p r o m o t e h i s n e w book, giving us an opportunity to learn more about his back- ground and writing style. Tell us about your time as a teenager in Rome. W h e n I l i v e d i n R o m e , I spent a lot of time in libraries. They were a haven for me. My parents were fighting a lot at t h a t t i m e a n d g o i n g t o t h e library was better than watching them fight. Plus it was where I could read all about sex in the encyclopedias they had on the shelves. I particularly remember C o l l i e r s a n d E n c y c l o p e d i a B r i t a n n i c a . I m a y n o t h a v e understood every word but I read it all. That library saved my life. What inspired you to write Call Me By Your Name? I w a s w o r k i n g o n a n o t h e r novel at the time, Eight White Nights. I had tried many times to start Call Me By Your Name, making the characters different ages, for example, but nothing seemed to work. Then one day, I was on a train bound for Genoa. Next to me was a young woman, smart, funny. She had a small dog on a leash. At one point she handed me the leash and asked me to watch her dog while she w e n t t o t h e r e s t r o o m . S h e returned and two stops later she got off, but not before telling me she was on her way to visit her father who was dying, and that today was his birthday. That incident is what got me started writing "Call Me." Was it hard to put yourself in the position of a teenager f a l l i n g i n l o v e f o r t h e f i r s t time? I was in my early 50s when I wrote "Call Me." I had to imag- ine what it must be like to be in love with another man. There's really no big process to it. It's s i t t i n g d o w n a n d i m a g i n i n g being someone else. I'm not a reporter. I'm not interested in naming towns or whether this character has blond hair or that person has brown hair. I want to give my readers a feeling for what's going on, but not all the details. Details are not important to me. What were some of your favorite scenes in the book or the film? To me, meals shared, bottles of wine opened, people sitting a r o u n d t h e t a b l e – t h e s e a r e i m p o r t a n t s c e n e s w h e n I a m telling a story. I don't care what they are eating and drinking, although personally I like a good wine. Rather, I like the idea of two characters facing each other, talking and examining things o v e r a m e a l . I n m y b o o k s , t h i n g s h a v e m u l t i p l e l e v e l s . Everything I write has several layers, just as all of us embody many personas within. There's a kind of excavation process going on there. What can readers expect to find in Find Me? My readers really wanted me to write a sequel. I got many, many letters asking: what hap- p e n e d t o E l i o a n d O l i v e r ? I didn't know the answer to that myself, but I thought it would be interesting to write the second novel from Oliver's perspective. While "Call Me" was a tradition- al coming-of-age book, Find Me is about time's effect on desire. The characters may have the same names but they are totally different people. Elio is now in his 30s and a pianist; Oliver is married. Find Me is a natural progression into their lives. Author Andre' Aciman, currently on a book tour for "Find Me," speaks to audiences about the new book, a sequel to "Call Me By Your Name." André Aciman asks readers to reflect on the many forms of love RITA CIPALLA "Find Me," a new book by Andre' Aciman, follows the lives of characters introduced to readers more than a decade earlier in "Call Me By Your Name."

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