Giovanni's Room

Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

I read this as part of my Litsy book club. This was Kaitlyn's selection. Here's what I wrote in this book's notebook:

Like many others in our group, I've had several James Baldwin books on my TBR but this one turned out to be my first. This is both good and bad.

Good: what a fantastic book! I knew enough about Baldwin to understand there could be some semi-autobiographical phrases or even passages, but the rawness and sheer depth of feeling, from both David and all the other characters, took my breath away and broke my heart page after page.

Bad: now I have this impossibly high standard I will be comparing future Baldwin books to! This is a problem you want to have.

People talk a lot about unlikeable characters and how they can turn a reader off, lose the reader's empathy, and generally ruin a book. I have tended to agree with this in theory and in practice--until I read Giovanni's Room.

There is so much going on, both in character backstories, outside forces in Paris and Europe, and the way non-straight people were treated. This all comes together to build such empathy in the reader that I didn't care whether or not I liked each character. Every single one of them had at least one thing they were either running away from or trying to pretend wasn't there. There's so much pretending going on between characters and within David's own mind--I found it amplifying and playing off the taboo of being non-straight in the 50s--even in Paris--and how so many people have had to pretend their entire lives, denying the most basic part of themselves.

Tl;dr: I freaking loved this book! With compelling characters and beautiful prose, this is now one of my all-time favorite books.