A Private Man - by Stephanie Sy-Quia (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

ONE OF THE OBSERVER'S BEST DEBUT NOVELISTS
FINALIST FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION
LONGLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

"Inspired by the author's grandparents, Stephanie Sy-Quia's assured debut traces a blazing, illicit romance between a Catholic priest and a feminist theologian in England during the social upheavals of the 1960s."--Time

It's the 1960s, and David is handsome, charismatic, and sworn to celibacy. An exemplary Catholic priest, devotion to God is all he's ever known, and all he ever thinks he will. In London, Margaret is adrift, healing from the loss of her parents and the end of a recent love affair. Increasingly drawn to the church, she sets out to join the new revolutions of sex and faith, taking up a teaching position at an all-girls school in David's diocese.

Decades later, Margaret is being cared for by her grandson, who has just discovered the strange truth of his family history. So begins the story of forbidden love and ardent faith, devotion and sacrifice, as the consequences of David and Margaret's unlikely union play out across generations. A first novel from an award-winning poet, A Private Man traces the exquisite love of two brilliant characters caught between passion and piety as they seek to usher the church they cherish into a more progressive era.

Review Quotes

Praise for A Private Man

An Observer Best Debut Novelist
Finalist for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction
Longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize
A Best Book of the Year: The Independent, The New Statesman, Kirkus Reviews

"Inspired by the author's grandparents, Stephanie Sy-Quia's assured debut traces a blazing, illicit romance between a Catholic priest and a feminist theologian in England during the social upheavals of the 1960s."--Hamilton Cain, Time

"The brilliance of the environment, and the luster of Ms. Sy-Quia's writing, sets the stage for the novel's illicit love story, which the author has based on the marriage of her grandparents . . . Impressively, A Private Man is sensuous but never salacious. Margaret's romance with David is, for many years, strictly intellectual. The ecstasies of attraction are sublimated . . . "There are many different ways to have an affair," writes Ms. Sy-Quia, and David and Margaret's is conducted through talk, which the book conveys with clarion seriousness and intensity. Those two qualities--gravity and passion--characterize this standout debut."--The Wall Street Journal

"For all its descriptive opulence, it's a novel stiff with tension, with sorrow, fear and disappointment wound into its most ecstatic and transcendent moments. Serious in its themes and concerns, it's also fleet-footed and absorbing. Sy-Quia might have begun with a family story, but she's ended up with a piece of impressively ambiguous fiction that explores different forms of devotion, and what happens when we reach their limits."--The Observer

"A tender account of enduring love and a captivating portrait of two characters from an impressive new talent."--The Economist

"A Private Man is about people who, in their quiet committed way, decide to make a difference. When two human beings are forced to choose between personal integrity and church-led morality, the decisions they make reverberate through their community and down the generations. It may feel like the fight for safe contraception and the right to choose has been won, but in many countries it hasn't. And even where it has, it could slip away. This is a story to treasure and a book to remember."--Orwell Prize for Political Fiction judges

"Full of secrets, sensuality, devotion, and doubt."--ELLE

"In the Catholic imagination of A Private Man, the sensuous and the sacramental emerge in what remains unsaid between characters; this muted desperation leaves readers unconsciously holding their breath. David and Margaret relate to one another with the restrained longing of a Sally Rooney novel, the gaping contrast between the characters' chilly interactions and simmering interiority, a via negativa opening a chasm of longing . . . Sy-Quia earns her place alongside Rooney and [Ron] Hansen in the Catholic literary canon."--National Catholic Reporter

"A Private Man builds its beautiful arc with both refined prose and character depth . . . As a novel, it asks for time. It asks its readers to live within its breathable boundaries of religion and absence. The writing is so beautiful the last thing you want to do is rush through it . . . Stephanie Sy-Quia has built a world within a world that readers enter and don't want to leave."--BookBrowse

"A vivacious woman falls in love with a priest in 1950s England in the emotive and revelatory debut novel . . . the narrative of forbidden romance blossoms into a revelatory meditation on the double bind of faith, showing how the characters' impossible decision will force a loss either way. This is superb."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Based on the true story of the author's grandparents, this intimate look at the marriage between a defrocked priest and a theology teacher takes place in 1960s England and 21st-century France . . . A tender, surprising excavation of minds meeting and hearts singing through disappointments to very human deaths."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"An exquisite novel based on the author's actual family. A story about passion, love, family and faith, written with clarity, care and poetic prose. Reading this was a very moving experience. There were many sentences I had to re-read several times out loud in awe of Sy-Quia's artistry."--Michael Imperioli, Emmy Award-winning actor, writer, and director

"Stephanie Sy-Quia's beautiful debut novel is inspired by her own grandparents' unique love story, unfolding between 1950s Rome, 1960s England, and 21st-century France . . . A story of slow-burn romance, but also of hard-won friendship, the novel explores faith, duty, and love. I couldn't put it down."--The Independent, "Best Books of 2026"

"Stephanie Sy-Quia was 16 when she learned about her family's remarkable past . . . Years later, after university, she went to France to care for her grandmother . . . The result is A Private Man, a fictionalisation of this thrilling true tale. It is a love story of intellect and passion, and a treatise on the repercussions of Catholicism's lack of willingness to modernise, particularly in terms of gender."--The Observer, "The Best Debut Novelists of 2026"

"A lush, evocative, and sexy narrative about old age, duty, passion, and theology . . . A truly impressive debut novel, one I could see appearing on the Booker longlist, and which I'll want to read and reread in the years to come."--The Sunday Times

"Religious belief is something novelists seem curious about once again, especially when it rubs up against sex and desire. The British-American poet Stephanie Sy-Quia's sensitive first novel, A Private Man, draws on the true story of her grandfather, a Catholic priest."--The New Statesman, "The Best Fiction to Read This Year"

"Serious and ruminative yet pulsing with sensuality."--Daily Mail (UK)

"A thrillingly accomplished work, and the central conflict between passion and duty yields insights both complex and sensual."--Mail on Sunday

"Sy-Quia's restrained, chiselled prose will delight admirers of Elizabeth Bowen and Anita Brookner, where the orderliness of the surface underlines the emotional churning beneath."--Church Times

"Sy-Quia's generous writing never imposes itself, or attempts firm answers to the difficult questions she poses. In particular, the elucidation of David's conflict with a private faith, public loyalty, and personal devotion is taut and well-constructed. Posed with clarity and poise, Sy-Quia's important questions are moving ones and, even for the faithless and lucky in love, important ones."--The Big Issue

"Exquisitely written and, moreover, utterly compelling."--The Tablet

"A Private Man seeps easily into your bloodstream, full of people you long to know, its theological geography mapped with affection and wit. With timelines that shift like weather, the novel is a smooth stone skimming the surface of a pond--then the light changes, and it becomes a carved chalice lit by fire. This one's going to stick for a while."--Leif Enger, author of I Cheerfully Refuse

"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."--Sarah Moss, author of Ripeness

"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. It's so rare to read something this deep that's also such a page-turner."--Luke Kennard, author of The Answer to Everything

"A Private Man is truly outstanding: clever, passionate and as clean as a bone."--Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley

"A rich, elegant and textured novel full of quiet, beautiful revolutions, which sparks with erotic friction. A Private Man is a brilliant debut about secrets and belief, about the collision of lives, and about the liberation of being remade."--Seán Hewitt, author of Open, Heaven

"A Private Man is a warm, tender novel, written with such beauty and precision that it frequently stopped me in my tracks. I read it slowly, carefully, marvelling at an image, savouring each glint and turn."--Alex Hyde, author of Violets

"Stephanie Sy-Quia's novel takes the truly singular story of a truly singular soul and makes it into something approachable, understandable and familiar. This is a novel brimming with empathy, tenderness and wisdom."--Aidan Cottrell-Boyce, author of The End of Nightwork

Praise for Stephanie Sy-Quia's poetry debut, Amnion

"A brilliant and beautiful book which wrestles with the scope and ache of lineage, the origin and myth and making of ourselves."--Rachel Long, author of My Darling from the Lions

"Unlike almost anything I've read--so alive it seems to squirm to the touch."--Will Harris, author of RENDANG, winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection

"Sy-Quia's bold Künstlerroman mesmerisingly transports us across continents and through the longing of diasporas, arriving in England, a 'deep bone-knowing country/Albion.'"--Sandeep Parmar, "Books of the Year," The New Statesman

About the Author

Stephanie Sy-Quia was born in California in 1995 and is based in London. Her writing and criticism have been published in The Guardian, The White Review, The Boston Review, Granta, and elsewhere. Her debut poetry collection Amnion, published in the UK by Granta Poetry in 2021, received a Somerset Maugham Award and was a Poetry Book Society Winter Recommendation; was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio and RSL Ondaatje Prizes; and won the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. She is the recipient of an Eric Gregory Award and is a fourth-generation teacher.