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David, a young American, is searching for himself in Paris, while his fiancée Hera wanders alone in Spain. David meets an Italian bartender named Giovanni in a bar owned by Guillaume. Giovanni awakens the desire in David's heart, and David enters Giovanni's room, which is cramped, disorderly, and far away from the city. From the beginning of the novel we know that David abandoned Giovanni, that Hera returned to the United States, and that Giovanni was sentenced to death for killing the bar owner. Baldwin moves freely through the timeline, and David oscillates back and forth between man and woman. With a keen and profound imagination, James Baldwin explores the abyss of love and creates a moving story of death and passion that reveals the unspeakable complexity of the human heart.