Giovanni's Room

James Baldwin's groundbreaking novel about love and the fear of love is set among the bohemian bars and nightclubs of 1950s Paris. In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality. With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin's now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a moving, highly controversial story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart. A book that belongs in the top rank of fiction." --The Atlantic