A beautiful new Clothbound edition of Baldwin s ground-breaking novel, which established him as one of the great American writers of his time Audacious... remarkable... elegant and courageous Caryl Phillips Exquisite, a feat of fire-breathing, imaginative daring Guardian David, a young American in 1950s Paris, is waiting for his fiancee to return from vacation in Spain. But when he meets Giovanni, a handsome Italian barman, the two men are drawn into an intense affair. After three months David s fiancee returns and, denying his sexuality, he rejects Giovanni for a safe future as a married man a decision that will bring tragedy, longing and regret. Gorgeous, fearless, tempered by dark knowledge and pain ... the greatest American prose stylist of his generation Colm Toibin A layered exploration of queer desire ... It is electric Hilton Als