A taut and subtle historical novel of two couples caught up in a world at war, from the acclaimed author of The Indian Clerk

We can always count on David Leavitt to bring buried desires to the surface and give the uncertainties of an era startling clarity in his fiction. Here in his glorious new novel, with his characters on the run from war and suspended in a precarious state of exile, he traces their efforts to create meaningful lives amidst the turmoil surrounding them. The result is a book that is artful, gripping, delicate, and fierce Joanna Scott, Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of Follow Me A loving exploration of one of the greatest collaborations of the past century ... a novel that brilliantly orchestrates questions of colonialism, sexual identity and the nature of genius Manil Suri on The Indian Clerk An insightful presentation of the entrancing, obsessive strangeness and beauty of pure mathematics in the Cambridge of Hardy and Ramanujah. A memorable feat Edmund White Excellent ... His Hardy is a superb creation ... The author also synthesises huge amounts of engrossing period gossip ... the snatches of backbiting and shop-talk richly convey the anxieties of the intellectual climate Saturday Telegraph Impressive ... Leavitt plunges us, like Ramanujan, into a world of academic squabbling and wartime privation Times Literary Supplement

David Leavitt's fiction has been a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Prize, the National Book Critics' Circle Award and the LA Times Fiction Prize, and shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award. His writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, Harper's and Vogue, among other publications. He lives in Gainesville, Florida, where he is Professor of English at the University of Florida and edits the literary magazine Subtropics.