John Freeman remembers his affection, as a new college graduate living far from his girlfriend, for James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room.
“I fell into the novel as if it were a manhole someone hadn’t covered over,” Freeman says. So deep was his identification that, when he reads commentary on the book now, he worries “that I somehow straighted a gay novel — gutted its heart and placed myself there instead.” (Thanks to Krista for the link.)
See also: “On finding the self you sought to bury,” “another species,” and “dismissing James Baldwin in a sentence?”
