James Baldwin, "Giovanni's Room"

Giovanni's Room is, on closer examination, a more unusual novel than it appears at first glance: its author, James Baldwin, is routinely counted among the greatest African-American novelists, and yet if one were asked to read the book blind and guess who wrote it, one would scarcely imagine the author to be African-American. The lion's share of the novel is set in Europe, and in a cast which includes a hulking blond protagonist and various American and European supporting characters, there is not a single African-American depicted. But Giovanni's Room avoids the thorny topic of race only to address an (arguably) even thornier topic in the year of its publication -- 1956 -- which is male homosexuality. As the book begins, though, it is not immediately evident that this is even going to be the topic, as David (the aforementioned hulking blond protagonist) is dealing with...
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