James Baldwin’s second novel, Giovanni’s Room, follows the tragic love affair of a gay American in Paris. When Chris Abani encountered the book as a bullied, unhappy adolescent, it made him feel less lonely:
As the youngest of four boys, I often found it hard to come to terms with the expectations of masculinity around me: the performance of it, so to speak. Afikpo [Nigeria], when I was growing up, was caught in that moment between a centuries-old way of being and a more modern one. There were expectations of how one proved one’s masculinity, but I wasn’t interested in those. I had a fraught relationship with my father, and a sweet and gentle one with my mother.
And yet, not being gay myself, there is a level of confusion, of hurt, that I couldn’t ever access. It always eluded me, made me feel like there was something more behind this story, something that was as tantalizing faint as the scent of Earl Grey Tea, but that would always remain closed to me.
And then again, perhaps not. Perhaps this is not the feeling of a straight man looking into the life of a gay man, unable to completely relate, but rather that of a self gazing deeply into another self and never ever being able to see it. Maybe it’s the existential melancholy we all carry, that of knowing there is more to us, and wrestling with the frustration that it will always be out of reach, darting into our peripheral vision when we are lucky.
The Dish 