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From one of the most brilliant and provocative literary figures of the past century comes a groundbreaking novel set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris, about love and the fear of love—“a book that belongs in the top rank of fiction” (The Atlantic).
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.
David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.
David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.
David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
9629 Reviews
4.0
Erin Kate Shealy
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“a beautifully worded reflection on how damning internal homophobia can be. & how sad is it that we live in a world which encourages such feelings to exist?”
libraryofshamsie
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“4.5/5 ✩ i consumed this novel in a day. i do not remember the last time i've read a book with such feverance. james baldwin's writing is brilliant as it is exposing. it fully ripped apart david's character and brain framework more times than i can count. he is a true master of self-loathing and internal conflict, for putting the copious meanings life into such delicate words.”
amaramac
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“beautiful book but wrongggggg time to read it lol”
pri
Created about 7 hours agoShare
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“longing, desire, shame, obsession, disgust, tragedy and the sheer mess of love and queerness and life. james baldwin just wrecks your heart.
'then, for the first time in my life, i was really aware of another person's body, of another person's smell. we had our arms around each other. it was like holding in my hand some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird which i had miraculously happened to find.
wuthering heights, price of salt and now giovanni's room completes my trilogy stories of love in their beauty and ugliness.
'If I could make you stay, I would,' he shouted. 'If I had to beat you, chain you, starve you-if I could make you stay, I would.' He turned back into the room; the wind blew his hair. He shook his finger at me, grotesquely playful. 'One day, perhaps, you will wish I had.'”
About James Baldwin
JAMES BALDWIN (1924–1987) was a novelist, essayist, playwright, poet, and social critic. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, appeared in 1953 to excellent reviews, and his essay collections Notes of a Native Son and The Fire Next Time were bestsellers that made him an influential figure in the growing civil rights movement. Baldwin spent much of his life in France, where he moved to escape the racism and homophobia of the United States. He died in France in 1987, a year after being made a Commander of the French Legion of Honor.
Other books by James Baldwin
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