Together, Closer: Stories of Intimacy in Friendship, Love, and Family

What is intimacy and why do we need it?

Intimacy is that moment when our true identity is revealed to another, when traumas, fears, and ambitions are shared. Whether in friendship, love or family, intimacy redresses itself constantly, demanding we raze emotional barriers and discover who we really are.

Through the ordinary stories of eight relationships, neuroscientist Giovanni Frazzetto has woven an extraordinary narrative of togetherness. He shares the details of romantic partners trapped in a long cycle of attraction and rejection, a single woman who finds herself deep in a fictional relationship with a boyfriend she has invented out of frustration with her love life, and a couple absorbed in a years-long clandestine affair. But intimacy can also extend beyond romantic encounters: coping with the loss of a loved one, dealing with overbearing or emotionally distant parents, or celebrating the joys and comforts of our dearest friends.

In Together, Closer, Frazzetto unravels the components of intimacy in all of these relationships, illuminating the mysteries, challenges, and pleasures of intimacy through a brilliant mix of storytelling and science.

Giovanni Frazzetto was born and grew up in Sicily. In 2002 he received a PhD in molecular biology from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg. In his work, Giovanni connects science, art and literature. In 2008, for his cross-disciplinary and science communication efforts he was awarded the John Kendrew Young Scientist Award. His book How We Feel, on the neuroscience of emotions, was among the Guardian Best Books of Psychology in 2013 and has been translated in to thirteen countries. Giovanni loves learning foreign languages. He now lives in Dublin, Ireland.

www.giovannifrazzetto.com