The Love of My Youth: A Reunion In Rome Raises The Ghost of the Past
From acclaimed author Mary Gordon, The Love of My Youth is a poignant novel about first love and the hopes and dreams of a generation. Miranda and Adam, high school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, a city where they once spent a summer deeply in love. At an awkward reunion, Adam suggests that they meet for daily walks and get to know each other again. Both have their own sense of who betrayed whom and long-held interpretations of the events that caused them not to part.
The Love of My Youth illuminates the period of change in the 1960s, both for the country and for two young people falling in love and struggling with the shifting emotional landscape between themselves, and then given this unexpected period of reflection together as people in their sixties, a completely different phase of life with its own challenges and perspectives. Click to read an excerpt and to download our reading group guide.