Casanova 20: Or, Hot World

by Davey Davis

A novel of art, desire, intimacy, and mortality, Casanova 20: Or, Hot World is about a young man isolated by his otherworldly beauty, and his strange friendship with an older painter

Cursed by an extreme and unrelenting beauty, Adrian has drawn the frenzied attention of adoring strangers since childhood. As a twenty-nine-year-old in New York City, he spends his days drifting between affairs with women (and occasionally men) who provide him with everything he needs, from spending money to luxurious vacations and even, once, a mini yacht. With this generosity comes a dangerous possessiveness that often puts him at risk of much worse than heartbreak. But as people begin removing their masks in the spring of 2021, Adrian’s aimless sexual availability is interrupted by a shocking He is no longer beautiful.

Across the country, Adrian's best friend and companion, Mark, a world-famous painter, has returned to the family home in rural Northern California. He's faced with his own horrible He’s dying from the same mysterious disease that will soon take his mother and sister.

Despite the depth of their platonic romance, neither man reveals his fate to the other. Feeling as if he’s disappearing from sight, Adrian searches for answers among his thousands of lovers. In a race against his failing body, Mark becomes obsessed with watching fifty-two VHS tapes of unknown origin, left to him by his sister, before it’s too late.

“An astounding writer, seemingly unconstrained by taboos and waist-deep down in the maw of life” (Torrey Peters), Davey Davis presents a modern-day Casanova figure grappling with what it means to find true intimacy when his very existence means constant exposure to the world's violent desire.

Genres: Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Adult

304 pages, Paperback

First published December 2, 2025

Reviews

[Remi · Rating 3 out of 5]

there’s something hypnotic about this book. the story moves like a fever dream—quiet, languid, but full of tension underneath. adrian, cursed with otherworldly beauty since childhood, has lived a life defined by others’ obsession and desire. i found his sections especially compelling: they’re filled with a sense of panic and melancholy, particularly once the pandemic hits and masks make him feel invisible for the first time in his life.

the novel contrasts adrian’s life with that of his best friend mark, a painter facing his own mortality, but i was more drawn to adrian’s side of the story, which feels richer and more emotionally charged. there’s something unnerving yet poetic about watching someone who’s been objectified all his life suddenly experience anonymity.

the author writes beautifully about beauty, desire, and identity in an age where being seen and being desired can be both power and prison. it’s a slow, introspective read, and though not everything lands evenly, it lingers long after the final page.

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i feel like this is a book i'd come across in an art museum.

*thank you to Catapult for the ARC*

[Ygraine]

feel abt this much as i felt abt paul takes the form of a mortal girl, not because they are stylistically or substantially all that similar as far as i can remember, but because there's smth glassy and artificial abt them that makes me v conscious of myself, like my breath and fingerprints are smearing the surface of the text as i read.

[C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Casanova 20 follows Adrian, a Dorian Gray-cum-Jesus figure whose unending beauty lands him in an ever-revolving door of fucking, being leered at and just as often, stalked—all of which he swallows with a strong dose of apathy. It’s only when his beauty begins to fade (twink death as prophesized by Oscar Wilde) that Adrian begins to feel things more fully, including the grief he experiences watching his good friend, the older and renowned painter Mark, die of an undisclosed illness. As the two men’s narratives weave into one glistening wound of consciousness, Adrian searching for the cause of his fading beauty and Mark facing his own revolving door of vomiting, diarrhea, and tortured sleep, Casanova 20 resists categorization and insists above all else upon its own beauty.

[Hannah H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

There’s definitely a deeper meaning to this book, but I was so unbelievably bored that I don’t even care.

[Léonie Camille Chainé · Rating 5 out of 5]

DAMNNN

[sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

i cried at the end... won't someone give Adrian a straightforward explanation to his question😭😭😭😭💔

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if you were unbearably hot for your entire life and one day, without warning, it stopped? One half of Davey Davis' third novel, Casanova 20 explores one straight man's grief over this conundrum, while the other side plays the story of an older gay painter watching his mother, sister, and then himself succumb to an unexplained but fatal illness. These two men's lives braid into each other while the world experiences the mass upheaval and grief of the covid pandemic. Davis is, as always, sharp and unexpected, even as they dig into themes around sex and illness that have infused their prior novels X and the earthquake room. Personally, I can't wait to see how some readers will misread the characters in this one — particularly the question of Adrian's sexuality and how to categorize the intimacy between the two leads. As with everything else in the novel, the answers are both straightforward and mysterious. It turns out twink death can happen to str8s, too.

[sofi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a perplexing read, one which I’m either too dumb or blind to grasp. + the pandemic remains a sore spot to me, which dampens my appreciation for the masks/vaccine-related segments of the book. Segments whose politics remain confusing at best

Most reviewers seem to have been captivated by Adrian, which I do get. He’s lovely, has been since he was a child, a tragedy in and of itself. And yet, he’s at his most beautiful when Mark is describing him; and Mark, the whole of him, is what I resonated with. A lot.

Hot world, whatever it may mean. The ghost of Arturo and its hunting of the narrative. The ghost of the AIDS Crisis and its hunting of Mark’s perception of sex, which Adrian is free from. The friends and the friends (italic). “My mother used to say that an accused man is desirable […] You might want to think about that”, which I don’t get. I am so perplexed. I am so sad. I need the author to explain it to me as if I’m five

[Steve Schaeppi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thanks to Goodreads for the ARC.

The premise of this novel is interesting, but I found myself quickly distracted by the stylistic choice of using block paragraphs and italics for dialogue. Because of these two devices, the time jumps can be very confusing.

The word choice is also distracting, as I needed to often look words up, as not even context clues could help me (words like desiderata, liminalities, insouciance, sputum, interstitial, bolide, and eroteme to name a small percentage).

The figurate language often feels like it is achieving the opposite desired effect, and overall, I'm not sure what I was supposed to walk away with after reading this.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure what to do with this novel. In some ways I hated it and it made me uncomfortable to read. In other ways, I loved it and the writing lured me in so much I read it in two sittings. The synopsis undersells the depth of this one. Not an easy read, but glad this was recommended to me.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book a lot better than the book itself. 2.5 stars rounded up to 3 because I pushed through and did really enjoy the last 50 pages or so.

[Gainze · Rating 3 out of 5]

forgettable.

[Glenn Ingersoll · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very beautiful story. I loved it!

[Steven Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

difficult to pin down or warm to or understand, sort of beautiful in its meandering remove

[Blake Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started out great. I thought the story would be more about Adrian and his journey to learning why he is no longer beautiful and maybe a few more lessons learned in that.