Last call for Daddy Augustine!

STARTING SATURDAY!

I can’t wait for this beautiful book to be in the world. Coming in May 2026: Luis Munoz’s ONE MOMENT, translated by Idra Novey & me. You can preorder it here: www.simonandschuster.com/books/One-Mo....

As someone who survived a major medical trauma, I really cannot recommend Small Rain enough. This book is a philosophical, nuanced, beautifully lyrical meditation on illness and survival and hope for what comes after. Heartfelt congrats @garthgreenwell.bsky.social on this deserved award!

One week until DADDY AUGUSTINE. Join us Nov 1 as we read the first two books of Confessions—the book that inaugurates the tradition that leads to the modern novel. 6 sessions, all recorded. Full info & registration here: www.garthgreenwell.com/classes-ig

Tonight!

The next picks for the To a Green Thought Book Club. In Dec, we’ll be reading KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN by Manuel Puig. Then, in Feb, COLD NIGHTS OF CHILDHOOD by Tezer Özlü. Open to all Founding Members. I’d love for you to join us. Full info here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/an-ideal-o...

Reading tonight @umassamherst.bsky.social. Full info here: www.umass.edu/english/even...

“Even the novel’s most rousing assertion of something like dignity presumes transience as a necessary condition of gay love.” @garthgreenwell.bsky.social on Giovanni’s Room.

I went to @icfilmscene.bsky.social's film festival & had some thoughts about Hedda, Romería, Peter Hujar’s Day, & several others. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/a-film-fes...

Friends in NYC, there are just a few tickets left for my event with Brandon Taylor. I’d love to see you at the Strand this Friday, 10/24, at 7pm. Chatting with Brandon is one of my favorite things; pretty sure this will be a blast. Get tix here: www.eventbrite.com/e/garth-gree...

I wanted to read @garthgreenwell.bsky.social’s reflections on “Giovanni’s Room,” not have them radiated at me, so I waited for three weeks until my local B&N had copy of @harpers.bsky.social.

Daddy Augustine starts in two weeks, on Nov 1. I’d love for you to join us as we read Confessions, with a focus on Augustine as a writer—as the great explorer of interiority. 6 online sessions, all recorded. Full info here: www.garthgreenwell.com/classes-ig

A beautiful explication of how St. Augustine’s style is just as formative as his content:

A superb reassessment of Baldwin's GIOVANNI'S ROOM, balancing attention to the novel's "negative" representation of homosexuality with a gorgeous close reading of the author's queer style. Invaluable contribution to debates about identity-based representation.

The great @garthgreenwell.bsky.social on St. Augustine open.substack.com/pub/garthgre...

Terrific essay by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social on Giovanni's Room and why the best art is anything but consoling share.google/N1ipypQilELA...

‘When I was a 14-year-old gay kid in the American South and pulled Baldwin’s novel off a bookstore shelf, it radically reoriented my relationship to dignity. The more I’ve read and taught the novel, the harder I’ve found this to explain.’ — @garthgreenwell.bsky.social harpers.org/archive/2025...

Very hard to believe it has been two years since the great poet Louise Glück died. Sharing again this remembrance I wrote then. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/rememberin...

On what makes Augustine so lovable, especially in the Confessions. No paywall. Link to full essay here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/marked-by-...

If nerdy close reading is your jam, please join us for Daddy Augustine, an online class exploring Confessions as the source of much of what is “modern” in the modern novel. 6 weeks, all classes recorded. Full info here: www.garthgreenwell.com/classes-ig

An astonishing essay by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social “Any art that excludes the irreparable excludes the possibility of genuine affirmation, as I’m trying to articulate it here; such art can only ever be propaganda for life, which can’t offer us any help at all.”

With three weeks until the start of my online class on Confessions, I spent some time analyzing a short passage to show why I think Augustine is such a great stylist, & what it means to read him *as a writer.* Free post, no paywall. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/marked-by-...

Beauford Delaney’s final self-portrait is a moving testament to his lifelong quest to accept his sexuality, especially when seen alongside his first portrait of James Baldwin. Free post; no paywall. Full essay here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...

I really enjoyed talking shop about opera and writing with @kevinng.bsky.social for @parterrebox.bsky.social.

On Beauford Delaney’s “Dark Rapture”—his first, great portrait of James Baldwin. Link to full essay (free post, no paywall) garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...

Truly excellent choices.

Garth Greenwell @garthgreenwell.bsky.social On Beauford Delaney. Courage & Desire in Baldwin's "Principal Witness". garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...

I wrote about the great painter Beauford Delaney, his friendship with James Baldwin, & the tremendous courage of his wrestling with desire & selfhood. Free post, no paywall. garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...

Just over a month until the start of this online course on Augustine's Confessions. Our focus will be on Augustine as a writer—as the inventor of much of what is "modern" in the modern novel. 6 sessions, all recorded. I'd love for you to join us. www.garthgreenwell.com/classes-ig

“The fact is that we live in the irreparable; we need art to help us ‘say Yes to life’ (a phrase Baldwin uses in Giovanni’s Room and elsewhere) from within the irreparable.” Garth Greenwell (@garthgreenwell.bsky.social) on Giovanni’s Room and literary “affirmation.” buff.ly/H17RvRG

“What the sentence says is that David and Giovanni’s romance will not last; but that meaning is scored to a music of rapture.” Amazed by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social's take on affirming literature: that affirmation comes as much from style—an author's care—as the subject harpers.org/archive/2025...

It’s extremely moving to read James Baldwin’s novels, one after the other, & watch him slowly escape the homophobic logic that structures Giovanni’s Room—even if traces of that logic always remain. These & more thoughts on Giovanni’s Room here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/more-thoug...

Scholarship applications for my upcoming class, Daddy Augustine: Reading Confessions, close tomorrow at noon ET. I’d love for you to join us. Full info here: www.garthgreenwell.com/classes

Can’t pick a sentence or two to pull, so let me just say, tremendous stuff here and a rare piece of criticism that speaks convincingly to why the art matters to me

This essay about Giovanni's Room by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social is beautiful and moving (as I would expect it to be) harpers.org/archive/2025...

Harper’s gave 6k words to my essay on Giovanni’s Room—very generous for lit crit in a glossy magazine. But the essay is a good bit longer. On the stack this week I shared some of what was cut. Also: why everyone should have a cat nearby when writing a difficult essay. tinyurl.com/4fj97d37

In other news, this critical essay on "Zone of Interest" by @garthgreenwell.bsky.social is both beautiful and provocative. Doing some lesson prep for my screening of ZoI next week and happened upon it. thepointmag.com/criticism/th...

"Any art that excludes the irreparable excludes the possibility of genuine affirmation, as I’m trying to articulate it here; such art can only ever be propaganda for life, which can’t offer us any help at all."

Wonderful essay. Giovanni’s Room was the first Baldwin I read, as an adolescent. Thank you for helping me understand the work of beauty and the work of the irreparable in this book

This is a wonderful article from @garthgreenwell.bsky.social about Baldwin.

“How did I find dignity in a book that seems so determined to strip dignity away from its characters, especially its gay characters? Where did I find affirmation in a book so enamored of the abyss?” @garthgreenwell.bsky.social on affirmation in art harpers.org/archive/2025...

So much of interest here, including the importance of form and style as outside and often antithetical to a "reduction of art to subject matter" + how art can acknowledge doom (even give over to it) while offering us the "equipment for doom's navigation."

“Any art that excludes the irreparable excludes the possibility of genuine affirmation, as I’m trying to articulate it here; such art can only ever be propaganda for life, which can’t offer us any help at all.” @garthgreenwell.bsky.social revisits Giovanni’s Room.

"It is a sense of the inevitable boundedness of our lives, their finitude and fragility, the minuteness of our agency in the face of their contingency, that I worry is excluded by the current usage of the term “affirming” in conversations about art."

I first read Giovanni's Room when I was 14. How did a book built (I now think) on a homophobic logic give me access to dignity? For Harper's, I wrote about why we should complicate our sense of what it means for art to be "affirming." harpers.org/archive/2025...

Very grateful to learn that Small Rain has won a 2025 Josephine Miles Award from PEN Oakland. I’m honored to be included among such excellent writers. Full list of honorees below.

Friends in NYC, I’m so excited to talk about Small Rain with my friend Brandon Taylor. Friday, Oct 24 at The Strand. Full info and tickets: www.eventbrite.com/e/garth-gree...

oh wow this is exorbitantly relevant to my interests