Summary

Andre Aciman’s novel begins with a first-person, retrospective narrator telling us that he wrote down the words “I’ve come back for him” in his journal. The narrator, who remains unnamed, is recalling the trip he took to the island of San Giustiniano, Italy after his graduation from university. We then find out that as a boy, the narrator and his family spent their summers in San Giustiniano. The house where they lived was burned down and their property was “pillaged” by the locals while the narrator was in university (3). The narrator speculates that the fire could have been intentional, but “there was no way of knowing anything” (4).

The narrator then reveals that he came back to San Giustiniano not just to see his old home, but for Nanni, who remains unidentified, and for “the boy of twelve [the narrator] had been...