Lewis Sullivan lives less than a mile from his childhood home. His grown-up daughter visits every day, bringing soup, and he spends his evenings at his second favorite pub for half a shandy and sausage. But when an old friend appears, Lewis finds his comfortable life shaken up, and he longs for more excitement. A modern-day Death in Venice by the author of Booker-shortlisted The Lighthouse, He Wants is charged and unpredictable.
"[Moore's] playfulness and the sympathetic and surprising character of Lewis make this artful novel a delightful read."
Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Following her Booker-shortlisted The Lighthouse, Alison Moore's artistically pleasing second novel is ... a story of ageing and thwarted desire in which a man drifts away from his moorings into Dionysian impulses, after a lifetime spent serving the values of the humdrum contemporary community in which he lives ..."
Rachel Cusk, The Guardian
"A nuanced, haunting tale of desire and repressed longing, and a very creditable successor to her quietly stellar debut, The Lighthouse."
