The first novel by the acclaimed author of Mothers - a deft, delicate inquisition of identity and ambition, and a daring act of fiction.

He was the only one who knew it had happened and he would never speak about it. He promised himself that, standing in the darkness outside the house, lighting one cigarette from the end of another.

When two men meet in a bookshop in Berlin they begin an uneasy friendship. Patrick has a sensational story to tell, one that Robert decides to take for himself. A twist on the cat-and-mouse narrative, A Lonely Man is about the search for identity and the elastic nature of truth. As the two men's association hurtles towards tragedy, Robert is forced to confront whether actual events are the only things that give a story life, and if some stories are too dangerous to tell.