James Baldwin is unequivocally one of the best American authors of the 20th century and one of my personal favorites. While I enjoy his nonfiction writing including essays and books like The Fire Next Time, I have made it a personal goal to explore his fiction work this year. In January I chose to begin with Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni’s Room and was not disappointed.
Prior to Giovanni’s Room, Baldwin wrote Go Tell It on the Mountain in 1953 to successful reviews among Black audience members.Giovanni’s Room was initially published in 1956 and is Baldwin’s first work that centers white and gay characters in his novel. His publishers were therefore fearful of Baldwin isolating his audience with a white and gay protagonist, but Baldwin, true to himself and his work, fought for its publication anyway. The novel itself has become a must read for those interested in American queer literature and details the inner conflicts of the novel’s protagonist, David.
David is an engaged American man living in 1950s Paris. Born in New York, David’s mother died when he was young, and he was raised by his father with the help of his aunt. His father garnered something of a reputation for being a bit of a womanizer and a drunk after the death of David’s mother and his aunt regularly verbalized her fears of David adopting some of his father’s vices. Within the text, this use of foreshadowing establishes for the reader that the novel itself represents more than the relationships that it covers, but instead the reader should be aware of the vices within the protagonist, the supporting characters, and even the reader themself.
As the story unfurls and the reader learns more about David, Giovanni and their relationship, Baldwin develops the book's central themes about identity and acceptance. As David struggles to accept himself there are consequences and the book’s ending leaves the reader with the weight of David’s inability to accept himself.
As a man that experienced the prejudices of being Black and gay in the United States in the 1950s, Baldwin left his readers with an incredible work of fiction that is regularly applauded as one of the great pieces of American queer literature and a classic American romance. Through David the reader is forced to reckon with the parts of themselves they’ve deemed undesirable at society's behest and question the internal suffering that comes with it. It should go without saying I strongly recommend this book to anyone that loves a well written story and wants to explore an often forgotten treasure in the bibliography of a great American writer.
Beautifully written review