Book Details
Format
Audiobook
Language
English
Published
Feb 10, 2026
Publisher
Faber & Faber
Description
This contemporary twist on
Brief Encounter
is a tender meditation on what might have been.
'Maybe we love people because they won't let us know them.'
A summer's evening in Manhattan. Nothing - not cold drinks, not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night drugstore - can undo the heat's hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news, his husband filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject 'From Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Carol - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he'd like her to relay.
Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park Grill is agreed. Carol, fulfilling Paul's final request, wonders how she will tell Julian of a life - and a love - he has no idea existed. A life, encased in a flash drive, containing multitudes.
Brief Encounter
is a tender meditation on what might have been.
'Maybe we love people because they won't let us know them.'
A summer's evening in Manhattan. Nothing - not cold drinks, not showers not a stroll through the chilly aisles of an all-night drugstore - can undo the heat's hold on the city. Julian is half watching the evening news, his husband filling the dishwasher. That's when it arrives. An email with the subject 'From Paul Axel'. An email about a dead man from Carol - a woman Julian has never met. Paul has left a message he'd like her to relay.
Emails are exchanged. Morning coffee at the Bryant Park Grill is agreed. Carol, fulfilling Paul's final request, wonders how she will tell Julian of a life - and a love - he has no idea existed. A life, encased in a flash drive, containing multitudes.
Genres
Contemporary