Giovanni's Room

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.