A Single Man

A Single Man is a novel by the English writer Christopher Isherwood, published in 1964. It is set in Southern California in 1962, shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis, and describes one day in the life of a middle-aged Englishman who is a professor at a university in Los Angeles.

George is fifty-eight and still grieving after the recent death of his long-term partner, Jim. He is unable to cope with the despondent, bereaved nature of his existence, and the novel follows him through a day of encounters with people that colour his senses and illuminate the possibilities of being alive and human in the world.

At the university where he lectures he discusses one of Aldous Huxley's books with his students, and afterwards one of them, Kenny, strikes up a conversation with him. The two of them walk to a bookshop, where Kenny buys George a pencil sharpener as a gift. Later in the day George visits a hospital to see Doris, a woman with whom Jim once had a brief affair.

The university in the book is a possible allusion to California State University, Los Angeles, where Isherwood himself taught for some time, and the novel is believed to have been influenced by a crisis in his own relationship. It was adapted into a film in 2009.