Adults Teens,

Forgotten Favorites Book Club @ Half Moon Café: Giovanni’s Room

Saturday, July 6 • 2pm

Every First Saturday of the Month at 2pm, we invite you to join us at Half Moon Rondout Café (83 Broadway in the Rondout) for coffee, donuts, and conversation.

For each date, we’ve chosen a title that is on the road to being left in weeds but one which we believe people should experience before it is forgotten. Together, we’ll revisit some of these books and decide if its time has come and gone, or if it’s destined for a word-of-mouth revival. Either way, we’ll all enjoy delicious baked goods and coffee, so there’s nothing to lose.

In the 1950s Paris of American expatriates, liaisons, and violence, a young man finds himself caught between desire and conventional morality.

David is a young American expatriate who has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend, Hella. While she is away on a trip, David meets a bartender named Giovanni to whom he is drawn in spite of himself. Soon the two are spending the night in Giovanni’s curtainless room, which he keeps dark to protect their privacy. But Hella’s return to Paris brings the affair to a crisis, one that rapidly spirals into tragedy.

David struggles for self-knowledge during one long, dark night—“the night which is leading me to the most terrible morning of my life.” With a sharp, probing imagination, James Baldwin’s now-classic narrative delves into the mystery of loving and creates a deeply moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspoken complexities of the human heart.

See all selections and request them from the catalog here.