A dazzling and devastating reimagining of Tennessee Williams's love affair with his longtime companion Frank Merlo.

PORTOFINO, ITALY. JULY 1953

At a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote, literary sensation Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet the enigmatic Anja Blomgren, an aspiring Swedish actress.

Their encounter will alter the course of their lives forever.

Spanning half a century and featuring a dazzling cast of characters - from Anna Magnani cooking pasta amatriciana in a sun-kissed kitchen in Rome, to Ludovico Visconti barking orders on his latest film set - Leading Men is a heart-breaking novel about life in the shadows of greatness, and a moving re-telling of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.

'I read Leading Men in one rapt afternoon, and spent hours afterwards just stunned from having been immersed in such a tender, psychologically devastating, and gorgeously precise novel' Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

'An alert, sweeping novel. To hold it in your hands is like holding a front-row opera ticket' New York Times

Soon to be a film, written by Matthew Lopez (Olivier Award winner for The Inheritance), produced by Luca Guadagnino (Call Me By Your Name)

'Movie stars in Italy, a longtime affair, and a missing Tennessee Williams play - what more could you want?'
Celeste Ng, author of Little Fires Everywhere

'A book to savour'
Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & The Six

'Extraordinary... I read Leading Men in one rapt afternoon'
Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies

'A novel of rare insight and beauty: Castellani is a writer of brilliant gifts'
Garth Greenwell, author of What Belongs to You

'Blazing... casts a spell right from the start'
Dwight Garner, New York Times


PORTOFINO, ITALY. JULY 1953
At a glittering party thrown by Truman Capote, literary sensation Tennessee Williams and his longtime lover Frank Merlo meet the enigmatic Anja Blomgren, an aspiring Swedish actress.

Their encounter will alter the course of their lives forever.

Spanning half a century and featuring a dazzling cast of characters - from Anna Magnani cooking pasta amatriciana in a sun-kissed kitchen in Rome, to Ludovico Visconti barking orders on his latest film set - Leading Men is a heart-breaking novel about life in the shadows of greatness, and a moving re-telling of one of the great literary love stories of the twentieth-century.

'Seductive and steamy' Boston Globe
'Touching' Washington Post
'Dazzling' Entertainment Weekly
'Spectacular' Publishers Weekly, Starred Review