We Are Only Ghosts

Books

An exhilarating, brutally candid saga about sexuality and war, tenderness and trauma, young passion and fierce hate, as a teenage boy's unexpected, complicated relationship with a Nazi officer in a WWII death camp is resurrected in 1960s New York City. We Are Only Ghosts depicts queer desire against the horrors of death camps and the psychosis of those who got out alive-haunted forever by those who did not-balancing the violence and hatred of war and its aftermath with many poignant moments of tenderness and joy. For readers of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne, and Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart. New York City, 1968: The customers at Café Marie don't come just for the excellent coffee and pastries. They come for the sophisticated ambiance, and the illusion of being somewhere other than a bustling, exhausting city. Headwaiter Charles Ward helps create that illusion through impeccable service-unobtrusive, nearly invisible, yet always watchful. It's a skill Charles ...