A review by trin
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

4.0

Beautiful and heartbreaking—one of those classics that, upon reading for the first time, you can’t believe you haven’t read already. Baldwin combines many elements that I love in this subtle, restrained story: it’s all repressed gay ex-pats—sort of like a [a:Henry James|159|Henry James|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1202237907p2/159.jpg] novel, if Henry James had actually been able to write about what he was actually writing about. This book probably deserves a more reverent write-up than that, but I have my own Jamesish moments, and true reverence makes me white-lightning uncomfortable.

Anyway, enough about me: you should read this.