The Magician by Colm Tóibín, Pan Macmillan

In this exquisite fictional recreation of the life of writer Thomas Mann – author of Death in Venice, about a writer who becomes obsessed with a boy – unrequited love is laid bare. It was a memoir by Mann’s wife, Katia, that made Tóibín no longer see a suffering wife, but one under no illusions about her husband’s attractions. Thomas, 15, is the “sensible” son of a provincial German merchant; seen as custodian of the family business. But “effeminate poetizing” Thomas is happiest playing the violin, his mother, Julia, at the piano. Julia moves them to bohemian Munich, where writer Mann proposes to rich, cultured, Jewish Katia. On holiday in Venice, a father of four (to his children he is The Magician whose stories banish nightmares), Mann’s gaze catches a beautiful blond curly-haired boy at breakfast, wearing a sailor suit.