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Baldwin: A Love Story
Not yet published
Expected 12 Mar 26THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2025
'Compulsively interesting and beautifully written - there is something to treasure on every page. I absolutely loved it' Zadie Smith
'[A] gloriously written and exhaustively researched page-turner' Jacqueline Woodson
__________
'For me,' wrote James Baldwin in 1959, 'the difficulty is to remain in touch with the private life. The private life, his own and that of others, is the writer's subject – his key and ours to his achievement.'
A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work.
Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time.
Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships – geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic – and alchemised them into novels, essays and plays that speak truth to power and which had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history.
Richly immersive, A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence.
The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2025
'Compulsively interesting and beautifully written - there is something to treasure on every page. I absolutely loved it' Zadie Smith
'[A] gloriously written and exhaustively researched page-turner' Jacqueline Woodson
__________
'For me,' wrote James Baldwin in 1959, 'the difficulty is to remain in touch with the private life. The private life, his own and that of others, is the writer's subject – his key and ours to his achievement.'
A Love Story, the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, reveals how profoundly the writer's personal relationships shaped his life and work.
Drawing on newly uncovered archival material and original research and interviews, this spellbinding book tells the overlapping stories of Baldwin's most sustaining intimate and artistic with his mentor, the Black American painter Beauford Delaney; with his lover and muse, the Swiss painter Lucien Happersberger; and with his collaborators, the famed Turkish actor Engin Cezzar and the iconoclastic French artist Yoran Cazac, whose long-overlooked significance as Baldwin's last great love is explored in these pages for the first time.
Nicholas Boggs shows how Baldwin drew on all the complex forces within these relationships – geographical, cultural, political, artistic, and erotic – and alchemised them into novels, essays and plays that speak truth to power and which had an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on Black and queer literary history.
Richly immersive, A Love Story follows the writer's creative journey between Harlem, Paris, Switzerland, the southern United States, Istanbul, Africa, the South of France, and beyond. In so doing, it magnifies our understanding of the public and private lives of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century, whose contributions only continue to grow in influence.
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Expected publication March 12, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
October 16, 2025
For an author like James Baldwin, whose books were so deeply inspired by his life, a biography like this is everything his fans could wish for. To see all the connections and all the possible explanations for his characters' decisions was beautiful. For people who haven’t read his books, this also shows his influence in the Civil Rights Movement. Highly recommended.
June 21, 2025
A very personal, up close approach to Baldwin filled with information and the dismantling of many myths. Boggs is able show the dynamics between complex forces. How racism and religion produce an escape and a catharsis and an oppressive theater all at once. How the desire for love from transactional and somewhat madcap younger men repeated and repeated as Baldwin -in a sense -recreated the sadness. And most interestingly to me how easily other people gave him money, exotic places to stay, trips, and endless connections. His one arena of almost no struggle was the one for artistic support- financial and incredible access to institutions and gatekeepers. He was always broke but it seems more because of drinking and not working jobs, but not because of lack of contributors. And he resented when loans were asked to be repaid. Despite great pain from structural and parental dysfunction the world wanted him to be a writer. And that stands out in this very intimate and fascinating work.
October 8, 2025
... to be an artist to him, was to be a truth-teller about everything - race, sex, politics, love - and it was also to be, in a word he would use with increasing frequency in the years to come, a witness.
And, as this sensitive and exhaustive biography shows, Baldwin had a lot to witness in his lifetime. I came to this not knowing much about Baldwin's life and only fairly recently having discovered his writing which stuns me with its beauty and pain. So this book was perhaps not the best place to start with the life as the text is over 700 pages which gives an idea of the level of detail at which it operates.
Boggs does an immense job in pulling together a complex life - and man. From the early upbringing in Harlem which led to Jimmy being a child-preacher, to the complicated family and struggles with acknowledging his sexuality from a young age, this draws us into Baldwin's life with verve. The swerve away from religion and the desire to write is made comprehensible, alongside the luck that Baldwin had in being spotted and helped by a series of teachers, mentors and patrons.
The highlights for me are the way Boggs explores how Baldwin's life, experiences and friends are transmuted into his fiction, certainly not in any simplistic autobiographical way. The genesis of Another Country is especially extended, with Baldwin playing around with ideas and material for years before it finally clicks into the work we have.
The other quality that makes this book come to life is the careful tracing of the Civil Rights era and Baldwin's positioning as a spokesperson for the movement. He was operating at the highest levels in speaking to Bobby Kennedy - even while the FBI were compiling a thick dossier on him as 'a dangerous individual who could be expected to commit acts inimical to the national defense and public safety of the United States in a time of emergency'. Baldwin's fear in travelling to the South where the possibility of being lynched was very real is palpable and there are a number of times when he is beaten and abused for both his skin colour and his overt sexuality.
The line-up of Baldwin's friends is incredible from a young Marlon Brando in the Village (and the possibility of them being lovers is floated here), to prominent Black Panthers, writers, artists, musicians and icons like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Ironically, the careful delineation of Baldwin's love affairs ended up being the least interesting part of the book, in the end, for this reader, though this sense of love and connection was, arguably, one of the most important qualities in Baldwin's life and art. His coming to an understanding of how race has been pathologized in the US led to his ability to pierce beyond the carapace of humanity to bring back such searing insights as we find in his short story 'Going To Meet The Man' where a white supremacist finds the only way he can have sex is while recalling seeing a Black man lynched and set on fire when he was a child.
Baldwin's ability to move beyond the personal and to see issues around race and sexuality as urgently political informs his essays, and there are some overlaps in the way that he sees the interlinking in America's mythology of race, colour and sexuality, especially in defining 'masculinity'. I was reminded, at times, of Frantz Fanon and his psychological unpicking of what torture, abuse and violence does to the soul and psyche of the perpetrator, as well as the victim.
In short, this is a detailed, thoughtful and sensitive biography that is not hagiographical but which is clearly immensely sympathetic to Baldwin. There are times when I felt that Boggs relies a little too much on very long extracts from the fiction and essays - almost as if he reveres Baldwin's words so much, he can't bear to cut them - and that adds to the length of this book.
Nevertheless, this is an immense achievement, bringing the private Jimmy Baldwin and the public James Baldwin to us as a multidimensional writer, thinker, friend, lover, son, brother and public intellectual. The final chapter of Baldwin's last days, reduced by cancer and in pain, is immensely moving - and the presence of a past lover as well as his brother who were with him at the end, tells us something about how this man was loved: 'As David said, "It's alright, Jimmy, you can cross over now."
February 20, 2025
In a world often filled with quick reads and subsequent reviews, it was a rather glorious experience to immerse myself in the 700+ page "Baldwin: A Love Story" by Nicholas Boggs.
Noted as the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, "Baldwin: A Love Story" reveals just how profoundly Baldwin's personal relationships impacted his life and his literary work.
Boggs taps into a wealth of new archival material, original research, interviews, and his own remarkable narration to paint an immersive story that you never want to leave. For those who know Baldwin's life, such names as Beauford Delaney, Lucien Happersberger, Engin Cezzar, and Yoran Cazac will be familiar yet still likely somewhat mysterious. Somehow, Boggs brings them all wondrously to life in a way that feels remarkably true to the essence of the Baldwin we've long known and the Baldwin we've perhaps never known.
While "Baldwin: A Love Story" is a remarkable effort as a biography, it's perhaps even more remarkable for Boggs's ability to capture this masterful writer's writing process and how it was shaped and developed and nurtured by his relationships whether they be lovers, intimate friends, muses, or mentors.
"Baldwin: A Love Story" unfolds leisurely, lyrically really, and with the rhythms of creative life fully lived in all its complexities. Boggs possesses a subtle narrative voice that illustrates how Baldwin was shaped by the structures within relationships - cultural forces, political movements, artistry, geography and, of course, the erotic. This is an uncompromisingly intimate story that invites us to observe and be shaped by that intimacy in profound ways. While reading, I often felt as if I could see Baldwin in front of me as his many masterpieces unfolded like "Giovanni's Room," "The Fire Next Time," "If Beale Street Could Talk," "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and so many others. This feels like a sublime companion to the riveting documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," and it's a book I've been unable to stop thinking about since I wound down my time with it after two weeks of slow, intentional, and immersive reading.
Indeed, "Baldwin: A Love Story" isn't a quick read. Beyond its over 700-page length, Boggs offers up so many layers of Baldwin you're scared to rush through it for fear of missing an essential fact or story. For Baldwin fans, "Baldwin: A Love Story" is a must-read. For those wanting an in-depth yet lyrical trip through a master writer's creative journey, this is a book to not be missed.
Noted as the first major biography of James Baldwin in three decades, "Baldwin: A Love Story" reveals just how profoundly Baldwin's personal relationships impacted his life and his literary work.
Boggs taps into a wealth of new archival material, original research, interviews, and his own remarkable narration to paint an immersive story that you never want to leave. For those who know Baldwin's life, such names as Beauford Delaney, Lucien Happersberger, Engin Cezzar, and Yoran Cazac will be familiar yet still likely somewhat mysterious. Somehow, Boggs brings them all wondrously to life in a way that feels remarkably true to the essence of the Baldwin we've long known and the Baldwin we've perhaps never known.
While "Baldwin: A Love Story" is a remarkable effort as a biography, it's perhaps even more remarkable for Boggs's ability to capture this masterful writer's writing process and how it was shaped and developed and nurtured by his relationships whether they be lovers, intimate friends, muses, or mentors.
"Baldwin: A Love Story" unfolds leisurely, lyrically really, and with the rhythms of creative life fully lived in all its complexities. Boggs possesses a subtle narrative voice that illustrates how Baldwin was shaped by the structures within relationships - cultural forces, political movements, artistry, geography and, of course, the erotic. This is an uncompromisingly intimate story that invites us to observe and be shaped by that intimacy in profound ways. While reading, I often felt as if I could see Baldwin in front of me as his many masterpieces unfolded like "Giovanni's Room," "The Fire Next Time," "If Beale Street Could Talk," "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and so many others. This feels like a sublime companion to the riveting documentary "I Am Not Your Negro," and it's a book I've been unable to stop thinking about since I wound down my time with it after two weeks of slow, intentional, and immersive reading.
Indeed, "Baldwin: A Love Story" isn't a quick read. Beyond its over 700-page length, Boggs offers up so many layers of Baldwin you're scared to rush through it for fear of missing an essential fact or story. For Baldwin fans, "Baldwin: A Love Story" is a must-read. For those wanting an in-depth yet lyrical trip through a master writer's creative journey, this is a book to not be missed.
November 24, 2025
absolutely phenomenal. james 🫶🏻
August 17, 2025
James Baldwin was a world of his own, and we were lucky to have had him.
Loved the way the author wrote about Baldwin, he not only told me his story, he made me feel. I mostly felt sadness for Baldwin but was happy for his triumphs. Baldwin always sought out love, in teachers, in friends, in lovers even though they all mostly ended and left him broken more and more each time. This book is a love story to Baldwin and about him. Everything from his works to his friends to his life mostly revolved around being accepted and loved, and his work mostly reflected that. I truly enjoyed this biography and highly suggest it because of all the beautiful things that the author wrote about Baldwin, and this book is an ode to him.
Thank you, Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for this masterpiece. All opinions are entirely my own.
Loved the way the author wrote about Baldwin, he not only told me his story, he made me feel. I mostly felt sadness for Baldwin but was happy for his triumphs. Baldwin always sought out love, in teachers, in friends, in lovers even though they all mostly ended and left him broken more and more each time. This book is a love story to Baldwin and about him. Everything from his works to his friends to his life mostly revolved around being accepted and loved, and his work mostly reflected that. I truly enjoyed this biography and highly suggest it because of all the beautiful things that the author wrote about Baldwin, and this book is an ode to him.
Thank you, Netgalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for this masterpiece. All opinions are entirely my own.
December 2, 2025
Nicholas Boggs’ Baldwin: A Love Story is a fine, serviceable biography of the great James Baldwin. At over seven hundred pages, it is comprehensive in its coverage of this complex and multi-talented man, exhaustively chronicling Baldwin’s complicated life and the intimately entangled relationship it had with his often autobiographical works. Baldwin’s passionate advocacy for Civil Rights, his groundbreaking writing on homosexuality, his brilliance as an unsurpassed essayist — all of it is here. Boggs highlights Baldwin’s many significant love relationships, but that feels more like an accent than a theme.
My issue with this book is that if you are only going to read one Baldwin biography this isn’t the one you should read, and it is too long and adds too little if you have already read another Baldwin bio. James Baldwin: A Biography by Baldwin’s longtime, intimate friend David Leeming is the biography you should read first. Baldwin hand picked him to write his biography and gave him full access to his papers. And after you have read it, this book simply doesn’t add enough to justify reading another lengthy, comprehensive biography. It’s not a bad book, I just don’t see that it was necessary.
My issue with this book is that if you are only going to read one Baldwin biography this isn’t the one you should read, and it is too long and adds too little if you have already read another Baldwin bio. James Baldwin: A Biography by Baldwin’s longtime, intimate friend David Leeming is the biography you should read first. Baldwin hand picked him to write his biography and gave him full access to his papers. And after you have read it, this book simply doesn’t add enough to justify reading another lengthy, comprehensive biography. It’s not a bad book, I just don’t see that it was necessary.
December 13, 2025
This is definitely a highlight among the biographies published this year. Seeing James's life through the prism of his four main love interests is such a fascinating take on his life and work. I enjoyed getting to know the author on a more intimate level, and I remain in awe of his contribution to political change in the US—especially regarding racial discrimination—and his determination to be his true self no matter what. His life is vividly depicted by focusing on those closest to his heart and the people who heavily influenced his writing. I certainly need to delve into more of James’s novels, and the background painted in this book is the perfect place to start.
December 5, 2025
I now understand what reviewers mean when they call a book “a triumph.” The author’s efforts to understand Baldwin’s life through the men he loved, through the family he loved, through the art form he loved, and through the countries he loved were an absolute win for humanity.
James Baldwin is a special hero of mine. Reading a book that celebrates his incredible impact—such huge waves of goodness emanating still from such a small, often sickly, and always haunted soul born to poverty and oppression in 1920s Harlem—was nothing short of inspiring and invigorating. And the fact that the author takes no effort to hide Baldwin’s own human weaknesses doesn’t take away from the legend he is; it only shows us that even a human can live a legendary life.
By far and away one of the best books of the year, for this James Baldwin devotee.
James Baldwin is a special hero of mine. Reading a book that celebrates his incredible impact—such huge waves of goodness emanating still from such a small, often sickly, and always haunted soul born to poverty and oppression in 1920s Harlem—was nothing short of inspiring and invigorating. And the fact that the author takes no effort to hide Baldwin’s own human weaknesses doesn’t take away from the legend he is; it only shows us that even a human can live a legendary life.
By far and away one of the best books of the year, for this James Baldwin devotee.
August 20, 2025
Coming in at 700 pages, I happily dropped all the books I was reading to be immersed in Baldwin: A Love Story and it was a joy to read. Broken into four sections, Boggs shows us the people, events, and places that shaped and nurtured Baldwin's writing. Boggs' narrative voice and the way he laid out the book worked incredibly well together. I learned so much about James Baldwin and I highly recommend picking up a copy.
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November 26, 2025First of all, it blows my mind to think about the work that Nicholas Boggs put into this book . . . but I am so glad that he did. Insights into a great man who was very much like you and me. Baldwin had a vision of our country and of love that inspires me. This is a very important book. The world is better because of both James Baldwin and Nicholas Boggs.
December 28, 2025
4.5, rounded up
October 5, 2025
A riveting biography of the great Jimmy Baldwin, “a major American literary figure in the 20th century.” I’m not a Baldwin scholar nor have I read a biography of Baldwin before, so I can’t comment on the historicity of Boggs’s work as such. However, I gladly report Boggs brings Baldwin to life in this tome. Constantly intriguing and thought-provoking in the way Baldwin forges new paths forward, I enjoyed learning about the various types of Baldwin’s works (e.g., novels, debut on Broadway, essays, the Malcolm X movie with Columbia Pictures, and plays in Istanbul) and his life during the creation of those projects.
Boggs weaves the works into the contours and overarching story of Baldwin’s life, highlighting how his private and public lives intersect. For example, subject matter in his writing includes African and Black American identity; racial prejudices, white supremacy, and civil rights activism; and homosexuality, queerness, and gender identity. Boggs points out Baldwin’s partners and lovers (e.g., Lucien, Yoran, Engin, and Beauford), his difficult relationship with America, resulting in his transatlantic life as he resides in places like Paris, Istanbul, and Puerto Rico when abroad. Baldwin’s growth or boldness in embracing his role in activism over the years gives readers context for his decisions to bring out specific themes in his books, plays, and scripts.
Baldwin’s enduring legacy is this: having no literary predecessors for same-sex Black love, particularly dedicated to the experiences of Black men, his intersectional work that focuses on oppression and liberation functions in this role for others who come after him. Baldwin’s bold imagination that represents Black same-sex love as such shows readers how to integrate his life “into Black American family life—or into any facet of American life.”
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
Boggs weaves the works into the contours and overarching story of Baldwin’s life, highlighting how his private and public lives intersect. For example, subject matter in his writing includes African and Black American identity; racial prejudices, white supremacy, and civil rights activism; and homosexuality, queerness, and gender identity. Boggs points out Baldwin’s partners and lovers (e.g., Lucien, Yoran, Engin, and Beauford), his difficult relationship with America, resulting in his transatlantic life as he resides in places like Paris, Istanbul, and Puerto Rico when abroad. Baldwin’s growth or boldness in embracing his role in activism over the years gives readers context for his decisions to bring out specific themes in his books, plays, and scripts.
Baldwin’s enduring legacy is this: having no literary predecessors for same-sex Black love, particularly dedicated to the experiences of Black men, his intersectional work that focuses on oppression and liberation functions in this role for others who come after him. Baldwin’s bold imagination that represents Black same-sex love as such shows readers how to integrate his life “into Black American family life—or into any facet of American life.”
My thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an ARC.
May 10, 2025
ARC Book Review.
Book ; Baldwin A love Story
Author; Nicholas Boggs
Genre ; Biography
Pub date : 19th August 2025
Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Author Nicholas Boggs introduces a different way of looking at James Baldwin’s life, his personal relationships and their impact on his work.
For a person that has had Baldwin’s books in my wishlist and TBR for a while, I’m glad I read this. It made me look forward to knowing more about him in his own POVs.
This Biography will broaden our understanding of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century.
It took me long to finish but it was worth it.
Thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for the ARC.
#bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #bookreview #arcreview #arcreviewer #BaldwinAlovestory
Book ; Baldwin A love Story
Author; Nicholas Boggs
Genre ; Biography
Pub date : 19th August 2025
Rating : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Author Nicholas Boggs introduces a different way of looking at James Baldwin’s life, his personal relationships and their impact on his work.
For a person that has had Baldwin’s books in my wishlist and TBR for a while, I’m glad I read this. It made me look forward to knowing more about him in his own POVs.
This Biography will broaden our understanding of one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century.
It took me long to finish but it was worth it.
Thanks to @netgalley and @fsgbooks for the ARC.
#bookstagram #booksbooksbooks #bookreview #arcreview #arcreviewer #BaldwinAlovestory
December 4, 2025
Expertly researched and deeply humane, this biography brings Baldwin into full, vivid dimension. Boggs gives us Baldwin in full dimension - his brilliance, his vulnerability, his contradictions - rendered with such care that you feel like you’re learning how to love and live more honestly through him. A stunning, essential biography.
August 15, 2025
2025 belongs to Mark Twain and James Baldwin. 6/6 ⭐️
October 10, 2025
James Baldwin was an intense man who lived in intense times and Nicholas Boggs doesn't want the reader to miss a moment of it. It took me over a month to read this 700+ page book because I needed to take breaks from the intensity. In many ways, Baldwin: A Love Story reads as a love story to, not about, Baldwin. Ron Butler's narration was a perfect complement to author Nicholas Boggs' words. Together they weave a complicated story about a complicated man. Is the book too long? I can't figure out what I would cut but do wish Boggs would do less telling and more analysis. All of these things happened, yes. But what does it mean? To Baldwin? To culture? To society? To me, the reader? Baldwin is such a touchstone in the world of letters and politics and general discourse, I suggest anyone in the least bit interested read this book. I am glad I did. Thank you to the Boggs, Butler, Macmillan Audio, and NetGalley for the audioARC.
If you know me IRL, I've already told you all about this one. It became my whole personality for a month.
If you know me IRL, I've already told you all about this one. It became my whole personality for a month.
November 2, 2025
After a third of the way in, I have to be honest with myself about this book. It is simply boring. I admire James Baldwin's writing and his activism and want to know about the man behind it, but this far into the book and we have not progressed. The author has yet to let Baldwin finish writing a book! Nicholas Boggs' writing is dull and at this point I'm ready to read some of the other biographies written about James Baldwin.
December 2, 2025
First and foremost, this book is an impressive and immense literary achievement. It is so thoroughly researched, to the point that Boggs, who never met Baldwin, manages to translate that reseach into such clear and thoughtful writing about his subject, taking up the position of an intimately knowing friend. Rather than biographer to subject. As one of my dear friends often says, "to be known is to be loved" and while this book is above love, it was also written with love.
And at first, I was skeptical about this premise of love, as I had grown to know Baldwin in a very different way - as an intellectual on race, the idea of America, and as a queer artist. But after reading this absolute tome (although it's truly never a slog), I don't think there's any better way to talk about our friend Jimmy. He was the most human of humans - loving, suffering, caring, a haunted empath, and a precious small guy who I think slept a total of 12 hours in his life and maybe ate 6 whole meals. He had a very simplistic openness to the world, to people, to the ideas of race, and even his struggle with this country. I say "simplistic" in the best way possible because he had such a realistic, blunt, and unpretentious way of talking about race and gender while still acknowledging (and feeling) the very real biases people held about these truly imaginary ideas and ensuing social contructs. And I think all of these ideas, beliefs, feelings, came from his own interactions with and understanding of love. The good and the bad.
Boggs also sold me on the value of Baldwin's fiction, which I have seriously struggled with and honestly disliked. Specifically, and I know, I'm making enemies here, Giovanni's Room and Another Country. I also tend to generally struggle with writers who I think should be essayists and who, instead, write both fiction and non-fiction. But this book provided more context for his fiction writing, especially the things he was wrestling with. And served as a reminder that to struggle with something, writing in particular, can mean that the writing is powerful and influential. And specifically with Jimmy's writing, there is likely something I need to hear and learn when I'm feeling that resistance. For that, Jimmy was and continues to be one of the most influential writers of our and all time.
I could go on, because there's a lot to cover here, but I'll let Jimmy say the rest, which beautifully sums up this book:
"Society is never known, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real."
And at first, I was skeptical about this premise of love, as I had grown to know Baldwin in a very different way - as an intellectual on race, the idea of America, and as a queer artist. But after reading this absolute tome (although it's truly never a slog), I don't think there's any better way to talk about our friend Jimmy. He was the most human of humans - loving, suffering, caring, a haunted empath, and a precious small guy who I think slept a total of 12 hours in his life and maybe ate 6 whole meals. He had a very simplistic openness to the world, to people, to the ideas of race, and even his struggle with this country. I say "simplistic" in the best way possible because he had such a realistic, blunt, and unpretentious way of talking about race and gender while still acknowledging (and feeling) the very real biases people held about these truly imaginary ideas and ensuing social contructs. And I think all of these ideas, beliefs, feelings, came from his own interactions with and understanding of love. The good and the bad.
Boggs also sold me on the value of Baldwin's fiction, which I have seriously struggled with and honestly disliked. Specifically, and I know, I'm making enemies here, Giovanni's Room and Another Country. I also tend to generally struggle with writers who I think should be essayists and who, instead, write both fiction and non-fiction. But this book provided more context for his fiction writing, especially the things he was wrestling with. And served as a reminder that to struggle with something, writing in particular, can mean that the writing is powerful and influential. And specifically with Jimmy's writing, there is likely something I need to hear and learn when I'm feeling that resistance. For that, Jimmy was and continues to be one of the most influential writers of our and all time.
I could go on, because there's a lot to cover here, but I'll let Jimmy say the rest, which beautifully sums up this book:
"Society is never known, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real."
September 15, 2025
At over 700 pages, Baldwin: A Love Story is no quick read, but it’s an incredibly rewarding one. Nicholas Boggs delivers the first major Baldwin biography in decades, and it’s both deeply researched and beautifully intimate. What makes this book stand out is the way it shows Baldwin through his relationships (friends, lovers, mentors) people who shaped not just his personal life but his writing. Familiar names like Beauford Delaney and Lucien Happersberger come alive here in ways that feel both new and true.
Boggs also gives us rare insight into Baldwin’s creative process, showing how works like Giovanni’s Room and The Fire Next Time were forged through connection and community. The narrative is lyrical, unhurried, and immersive. You can almost feel Baldwin in the room with you.
This isn’t a biography to rush through. It’s one to savor slowly, layer by layer. For Baldwin admirers, it’s essential reading. For newcomers, it’s a powerful introduction to a life and body of work that remain as urgent as ever.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
Boggs also gives us rare insight into Baldwin’s creative process, showing how works like Giovanni’s Room and The Fire Next Time were forged through connection and community. The narrative is lyrical, unhurried, and immersive. You can almost feel Baldwin in the room with you.
This isn’t a biography to rush through. It’s one to savor slowly, layer by layer. For Baldwin admirers, it’s essential reading. For newcomers, it’s a powerful introduction to a life and body of work that remain as urgent as ever.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
November 30, 2025
Excellent. I loved everything about this in-depth biography which combined just the right about of detail from Baldwin's life with critical analysis of his work and the effort required to produce it. If I had a quibble it would be that I don't really buy the book's subtitle or the structure of the book in four parts. Each of the major romantic figures afforded a separate "part" of the book seems to have overlapped with the others chronologically. These were not discrete stages in Baldwin's life. I don't think it matters terribly much except in point out that three of the four romantic partners were mostly unavailable to him and certainly to the degree that he wanted.
Despite this, we are invited into a remarkable world where James Baldwin's talent and consistent struggle to understand himself were always at the forefront of his writing. If everything that an artist produces is a projection of their own identity and perspective, with Baldwin we get a more unusual identity and a profoundly complex and evolving perspective. A first class biography of an extraordinary writer.
Despite this, we are invited into a remarkable world where James Baldwin's talent and consistent struggle to understand himself were always at the forefront of his writing. If everything that an artist produces is a projection of their own identity and perspective, with Baldwin we get a more unusual identity and a profoundly complex and evolving perspective. A first class biography of an extraordinary writer.
September 6, 2025
A well written and extremely well researched biography.I have read some of James Baldwin's novels and the occasional essay but I knew little about the author and this book was certainly an eye opener
Nicholas Boggs relates this biography through four of his beloved men who came to be the centre of not only of his writing but also his health problems and suicide attempts as relationships failed.
In someways Baldwin appeared to be child like and petulant especially when things did not go his way but throughout the stages of his life, including his fame, he gave the impression of loneliness and diconnection
A superb biography and despite its length an addictive page turner.
Nicholas Boggs relates this biography through four of his beloved men who came to be the centre of not only of his writing but also his health problems and suicide attempts as relationships failed.
In someways Baldwin appeared to be child like and petulant especially when things did not go his way but throughout the stages of his life, including his fame, he gave the impression of loneliness and diconnection
A superb biography and despite its length an addictive page turner.
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September 18, 2025read a review of this book that described the way his love matured as he aged, growing calmer and steadier, like a river when it widens.
the last words baldwin wrote, scrawled on a piece of mail:
safety and honor both adore each other but are doomed to discover that they cannot find a way to live, or sleep, together. honor’s demands are brutal and so are those of safety. one or the other must give way. one or the other must surrender.
the last words baldwin wrote, scrawled on a piece of mail:
safety and honor both adore each other but are doomed to discover that they cannot find a way to live, or sleep, together. honor’s demands are brutal and so are those of safety. one or the other must give way. one or the other must surrender.
December 15, 2025
This took me over a month to read due to its tome-ness but I loved it. A fascinating, troubling, astonishing, well-written biography of one of the greatest minds in literature.
December 15, 2025
very dense very good
December 28, 2025
All that hype? Yeah, it's true. I didn't even mind when Boggs went a little fanboying in one section (really late in the book). He earned the right to do that.
November 20, 2025
An exhaustive and exhausting biography of James Baldwin. I slow-rolled through this behemoth (~600 of the ~700 pages of actual biography) over the course of 2 months that is surely the be-all/end-all biography of the literary great and civil rights icon. It's a dense and detailed that I found myself thinking at times that I didn't really need to know *THAT* much about Baldwin, so I almost feel like this one is for Baldwin super-fans, but it certainly made me want to read more of his body of work (off the top of my head, I think I've only read 'Giovanni's Room' and 'The Fire Next Time').
But ultimately and honestly, this is a work that I ended up respecting more than enjoyed when I made my way through it -- I almost wanted to give it 5 stars for myself, for having the perseverance and accomplishment of reading it. It moved along fine at times, but was also a slog for me on occasion as well. Also, of interest, I learned that Boggs is the partner (husband? boyfriend?) of literary fiction/Booker Prize winner, Marlon James. Overall, a 4 stars for what is a significant literary accomplishment and honest look at Baldwin's sexuality, relationships, and literary and personal life.
December 21, 2025
Excellent biography; one of the best I've ever read. Boggs really gets into detail on Baldwin's life, times, and loves.
September 4, 2025
A massive reclamation project.
August 5, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux for the eARC!
This was such a unique way to break up the story of Baldwin's life. Boggs is clearly knowledgeable and clearly loves his subject. But he also doesn't shy away from the dark parts of Baldwin's personality, or the struggles he faced.
While there were places where it felt like Boggs got distracted by the people Baldwin surrounded himself with, overall this is a beautiful ode to Baldwin. Whether you love Baldwin or are new to him, this is a biography worth checking out.
This was such a unique way to break up the story of Baldwin's life. Boggs is clearly knowledgeable and clearly loves his subject. But he also doesn't shy away from the dark parts of Baldwin's personality, or the struggles he faced.
While there were places where it felt like Boggs got distracted by the people Baldwin surrounded himself with, overall this is a beautiful ode to Baldwin. Whether you love Baldwin or are new to him, this is a biography worth checking out.
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