From a youthful infatuation with a cabinet maker in a small Italian fishing village, to a passionate yet sporadic affair with a woman in New York, to an obsession with a man he meets at a tennis court, Enigma Variations charts one man`s path through the great loves of his life. Paul`s intense desires, losses & longings draw him closer, not to a defined orientation, but to an understanding that `heartache, like love, like low-grade fevers, like the longing to reach out & touch a hand across the table, is easy enough to live down`. André Aciman casts a shimmering light over each facet of desire, to probe how we ache, want & waver, & ultimately how we sometimes falter & let go of the very ones we want the most. We may not know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves & to others. But sooner or later we discover who we`ve always known we were.