The Parting Gift: A Novel

Praise for The Parting Gift: A Novel

“An erotic, mysterious novel.” —New York Times Book Review

“A feverish and hypnotic epistolary novel, and a tantalizing literary treat. While wholly its own creation, readers may feel the influences of Patricia Highsmith (the sense of mounting dread) and Edmund White (the white-hot sexual encounters are salacious, surprising and erotic)…haunting, emotionally satisfying and beautifully written.” —Shelf Awareness (starred review) 

“Magnetic…a complicated study of the ways in which religious heritage—from codes of honor to familial expectations—interacts with business and acceptance, family and lovers, and self-realization…A beautiful novel whose only fault is ending too soon.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Riveting…Fallenberg writes with a quiet yet rising intensity that draws the reader into the story.” —The Advocate, The Best Books We Read in 2018: LGBTQ Novels
 
“Fallenberg lushly describes the physical aspects of this passion in rich and supple language, making this a very sexy read.” —Lambda Literary
 
“Intoxicating…Fallenberg is a fearless writer; particularly on the vulnerability and rawness of desire. His crisp taut sentences compel us to keep reading.” —Jerusalem Post
 
“Keeps us glued to the page…a well-written, compelling novel with a bold narrative that explores the frailty of human relationships, same-sex and otherwise.” —Times of Israel
 
“A suspenseful page-turner of personal entanglement.” —World Literature Today
 
“Fascinating…a sharp, short, streamlined text, compelling and vividly readable from the first sentence, and falling easily into that category of books which are ‘difficult to put down.’” —Entropy

“The Parting Gift is itself a gift, an intricate and complex story, beautifully and tenderly told. It offers one surprise after another and accomplishes what only great literature can by compelling us to confront the parts of ourselves we’d rather not look at.” —Imbolo Mbue, New York Times bestselling author of Behold the Dreamers
 
“This is a perfect little book—a whip-crack of a story, propelling us so seamlessly and irresistibly from vulnerability to viciousness, from the familiar to the monstrous, that it’s in a class with Lolita and Rebecca. In prose both sensuous and eviscerating, Evan Fallenberg sweeps us onward where we’d otherwise drag our feet, into terrain where one loses track of just who is twisting the knife in the narrator, in the reader, in the soul of a country.” —Rachel Kadish, author of The Weight of Ink
 
“Intoxicating. Intense. Impiously pure. Evan Fallenberg has penned a ‘lust letter’ to the human condition and brilliantly depicts the engagement of sex in the pursuit of love. From the first page, The Parting Gift dares you to put it down, and you will not because the language is simply riveting. This brutal epistolary novel is disturbingly profound, a Giovanni’s Room in a beach town north of Tel Aviv where the sights, tastes, and most of all the smells are simply to die for.” —Xu Xi, author of Dear Hong Kong

“An unabashed tale that does not pull punches and looks at love’s underside only to find in the brute sex between two men the binding stuff that makes us all selfless and selfish. We may dream of loyalty in us and in others but find treachery everywhere, more in us perhaps than in others. For there may be no truth in life, and love is wicked, stubborn, always scared, never kind. And yet there is a twist at the end that is worth every page of this breathless story that should only be read in one sitting. It hits hard and never lets up. Terse, brusque, etched on one’s inner thigh with an old serrated knife.” —André Aciman, author of Call Me by Your Name