One day the two find themselves in a local haunt bar where they meet Giovanni, the new barman. The girl he is sort of seeing is away in Spain so an unsupervised and penniless David begins to frequent an acquaintance of his, Jaques, an older gay man who he finds somewhat repulsive but is happy to exploit. This short novel is set in 1950s Paris when David, an American ex-pat, is idling away his time, drinking and partying with people he generally looks down upon, in an effort not to keep at bay thoughts about his past or future. In many ways, Giovanni’s Room reads as a confession of sorts, even if our narrator does like to deny his own culpability.
In a striking prose, James Baldwin unfurls a disquieting tale of cowardice and self-deception.
That I choose to re-read this confirms that I do indeed have masochistic tendencies.
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