Synopsis
'It’s a rare pleasure to read this novel' - Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness
An exquisite slow-burn forbidden love story, laced with passion and faith
Rome, 1953. David is young, handsome, charismatic, and sworn to celibacy. He is freshly ordained, and about to return to England to begin life as a priest. Devotion to God is all he’s ever known, and all he thinks he ever will.
In London, Margaret is entangled in an impossible love affair. Increasingly drawn to the Church, she sets out to join the new revolutions of sex and faith.
Decades later, she is being cared for by her grandson, who has just discovered the strange truth of his family history.
Stephanie Sy-Quia’s A Private Man is a stunning story of devotion and sacrifice, and of the consequences of our actions that ripple throughout generations.
Details
19 February 2026
9781035052615Reviews
A luminous, deeply thoughtful and moving love story. Breathtakingly honest and true on sex, on art, on the analogy between religious and corporeal pleasure, A Private Man is also a meditation on care, faith, doubt and loss. A beautiful and wise novel
I loved A Private Man. Sy-Quia writes beautifully and energetically about faith and food and clothes and sex. Her prose embraces beauty and her characters are complex and compelling. It’s a rare pleasure to read this novel
