David drinks alone in a rented house in the South of France, waiting for his former lover Giovanni's execution at dawn.

As a teenager, David has a sexual encounter with his best friend Joey and wakes the next morning consumed by shame.

After military service and a drunken accident, David moves to France to escape his life and repressed desires in America.

Short on money, David visits Guillaume's gay bar with his acquaintance Jacques and notices the charming new Italian barman, Giovanni.

Guillaume pulls Jacques away from the bar, leaving David alone with Giovanni for a long, captivating conversation about Paris and New York.

David follows Giovanni to a crowded bar near Les Halles, where Giovanni recounts how Guillaume exploits him in exchange for work.

David and Giovanni nervously walk to Giovanni's small room on the outskirts of Paris and fall into each other's arms.

David moves into Giovanni's room, and the couple spends joyful early days together wandering the streets and riversides of Paris.

David receives a letter from Hella announcing her return to Paris and sleeps with his acquaintance Sue to test his attraction to women.

Guillaume publicly accuses Giovanni of stealing and fires him after Giovanni refuses to submit to the older man's sexual advances.

Despite promising to stay with Giovanni, David secretly abandons him without warning and goes to meet Hella arriving at the Paris train station.

Walking with Hella, David runs into Jacques and Giovanni at a bookstore and coldly introduces them to Hella as mere acquaintances.

David drunkenly returns to Giovanni's room, where Giovanni accuses him of selfishness and never truly loving anyone but himself.

Giovanni is arrested hiding on a boat on the Seine after Guillaume is found dead, and a court sentences him to execution by beheading.

Hella finds David at a gay bar in Nice, confronts him about his lies, and departs for America, leaving David utterly alone.

Giovanni's Room follows David, an American expatriate in France, who falls into a passionate relationship with an Italian barman named Giovanni while his fiancée Hella is away in Spain. David moves into Giovanni's tiny room and experiences real happiness for the first time, but his fear of his own sexuality drives him to plan his escape from the start. When Hella announces her return, David abandons Giovanni without warning and attempts to rebuild his life within the safety of a conventional engagement. Giovanni, left without money or work, spirals into desperation and eventually murders his exploitative employer Guillaume, for which he is sentenced to death. David's guilt destroys his relationship with Hella, who discovers his lies and leaves for America, abandoning him entirely. The novel ends with David utterly alone, praying for salvation on the morning of Giovanni's execution.

The central story of David and Giovanni's love affair and its tragic end.

David's father and Aunt Ellen argue constantly about his upbringing, with Ellen fearing David will grow up a drunk like his father.

A soldier David was intimate with is court-martialed on suspicion of same-sex conduct, prompting David to flee America for France.

David exploits his acquaintance Jacques's attraction to him, using guilt and manipulation to secure a meal and ten thousand francs.

David watches the regulars at Guillaume's gay bar with contempt, judging the drag queens and desperate older men harshly from a distance.

A man in drag at Guillaume's bar approaches David for a drink and prophesies that Giovanni will one day cause David great pain.

In the taxi to Les Halles, Giovanni holds David's hand while David silently resolves to clarify the true nature of their friendship.

Jacques urges David at the Les Halles bar not to feel ashamed of his attraction to Giovanni and to embrace his real chance at happiness.

David secretly writes to his father in America requesting money, intending to use it to escape Giovanni's room and end their affair.

David's father refuses to send money to Paris, leaving David financially trapped in Giovanni's room against his own wishes.

David notices an unexpected desire for a young man who strolls past while he and Giovanni are eating cherries on a riverbank.

At the American Express Office, a passing sailor fixes David with a contemptuous look, making David fear his desires are now visible to others.

After losing his job, Giovanni begins renovating the disordered room as a sign of his love and commitment to a shared life with David.

David confesses to Giovanni that he hates the room and wants to leave Paris altogether, shocking Giovanni with his sudden cruelty.

In bed together, David lies to Hella about his relationship with Giovanni, dismissing Giovanni's anguish as merely exaggerated European affection.

David witnesses Giovanni visibly deteriorating around Paris — first appearing as Jacques's kept companion, then joining a group of street boys.

This pool traces the secondary experiences and relationships that surround David's central story, revealing the social world that both pressures and enables his self-deception. David's upbringing under a drunken father and watchful Aunt Ellen plants the seeds of his fear and his obsession with performing masculinity. In Paris, David navigates a community of older and younger gay men with contempt and anxiety, exploiting Jacques while desperately distancing himself from the identity they represent. The early days with Giovanni are shadowed by David's growing paranoia about being readable and his frantic plans to escape the room. After Giovanni is fired and David abandons him for Hella, Giovanni's visible deterioration around Paris marks the cost of David's choices. Together, these events fill in the emotional texture of David's cowardice and the quiet devastation it leaves behind.

The supporting moments and relationships that shaped David's journey of denial.

David overhears his father tell Aunt Ellen he only wants David to grow up to be a man — a wish that haunts David for years.

David gets in a drunken car accident and moves out of his father's house, finding it easier to love the man from a distance.

The Italian caretaker visits the rental house, takes inventory, and urges the isolated David to find a woman and build a family.

Jacques warns David at the Les Halles bar that confusion is a luxury only the very young can afford, and David is no longer that young.

David reveals to Giovanni for the first time that he has a fiancée named Hella who is traveling Spain to consider his marriage proposal.

David secretly plans to leave Giovanni as soon as Hella returns, writing to his father for money to fund his escape from the room.

After promising to stay with Giovanni, David borrows money from Jacques rather than his father, refusing to commit his intentions in writing.

Hella returns from Spain and she and David discover their shared desire for a traditional family, agreeing to move forward with marriage.

David writes to his father asking for money for a wedding and honeymoon with Hella, and his father finally agrees to release the funds.

During their final argument, Giovanni reveals he came to Paris after his wife delivered a stillborn son, and David gave him a reason to live.

David slips out of Giovanni's room quietly at dawn after their final argument, leaving without further protest or explanation.

Increasingly revolted by Hella and consumed by guilt, David grows so distant that Hella eventually begs him to take her home to America.

David sneaks away from Hella one night to Nice, where he sleeps with a sailor and spends the following days drinking with the sailor's crew.

Alone in the empty rental house before dawn, David stares at his own reflection and imagines Giovanni's final moments before execution.

David tears up the notice Jacques sent about Giovanni's execution; some pieces scatter in the wind while others cling to him as he walks away.

This pool focuses on the pivotal moments of choice and discovery that expose the interior logic of David's self-destruction. From his father's quiet wish that David grow up to be a man, to Jacques's warning that David is running out of time to accept himself, each turning point reveals how deeply David's fears shape his cruelest decisions. David repeatedly chooses escape over honesty — secretly writing to his father, borrowing from Jacques, slipping out of Giovanni's room at dawn — even as Giovanni reveals the full depth of his grief and love. His reunion with Hella offers a temporary illusion of safety, but his guilt and desire cannot be contained, and a reckless affair with a sailor in Nice brings everything to ruin. The pool ends with David alone, staring at his reflection on the morning of Giovanni's execution, before tearing up the notice and walking away into an unresolved future.

The key decisions and revelations that drove David's self-deception and ultimate loss.