Typescript draft with holograph emendations, Giovanni’s Room

HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR: This page is from a draft of James Baldwin’s groundbreaking second novel, Giovanni’s Room, published in 1956. Daring for its time, the novel tells the tragic story of love between two men. 

Many warned Baldwin that Giovanni’s Room would ruin his reputation and alienate his readers. Nonetheless, he felt driven to publish the book, and to ignore editorial suggestions—like the one in the left margin here—that advised him to “cut” the overtly gay scenes. 

This page shows the passage where David, the narrator, recalls his first romantic encounter with a boy—a buddy named Joey. The typed text is very close to what ended up in the book. But Baldwin has added in eight words by hand: “. . . we kissed, as it were, by accident. Then . . . .” 

Listen carefully to this early 1960s recording of Baldwin reading from the passage. When he gets to the line that he added in manuscript, think about why he may have added it, and the difference to the scene that the line’s presence makes. 

JAMES BALDWIN: “I laughed and grabbed his head, as I had done God knows how many times before when I was playing with him, or when he had annoyed me. But this time when I touched him something happened in him and in me which made this touch different from any touch either of us had ever known. And he did not resist, as he usually did, but lay where I had pulled him, against my chest. And I realized that my heart was beating in an awful way and that Joey was trembling against me and the light in the room was very bright and hot. I started to move and to make some kind of joke but Joey mumbled something and I put my head down to hear. Joey raised his head as I lowered mine, and we kissed, as it were, by accident. Then, for the first time in my life I was really aware of another person’s body, of another person’s smell. We had our arms around each other. It was like holding in my hand some rare, exhausted, nearly doomed bird which I had miraculously happened to find. I was very frightened, I am sure he was frightened too, and we shut our eyes. To remember it so clearly, so painfully tonight tells me that I have never for an instant truly forgotten it.”