
on order from publisher
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192
Jun 2024
Paperback
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Vintage
9780593688960
"Baldwin writes . . . with unusual candor and yet with such dignity and intensity."--The New York Times
Includes a new introduction by award-winning poet Kevin Young and special cover art featuring a portrait of James Baldwin by his friend and contemporary Beauford Delaney
In 1950s Paris, a young American expatriate finds himself caught between his repressed desires and conventional morality. David has just proposed marriage to his American girlfriend, but while she is away on a trip he becomes involved in a doomed affair with a bartender named Giovanni. With sharp, probing insight, James Baldwin's classic novel delves into the mysteries of love and tells a deeply moving story that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.
I’d been meaning to read this for years, and I’m so glad I didn’t let another one slip by without experiencing this masterpiece. Set in the 1950s, Baldwin perfectly captures the suffocating reality of being queer during this time. Sparks fly when a young American meets an Italian barman in Paris, but love can’t breathe when confined to a single room, and tragedy inevitably ensues. Utterly heartbreaking and beautifully written.



