"I was to meet Eugene sometime between 1943 and 1944 and ‘run’ or ‘hang’ with him until he hurled himself off the George Washington Bridge, in the winter of 1946. We were never lovers: for what it’s worth, I think I wish we had been.

When he was dead, I remembered that he had, once, obliquely, suggested this possibility. He had run down a list of his girl friends: those he liked, those he really liked, one or two with whom he might really be in love, and, then, he said, ‘I wondered if I might be in love with you.’

I wish I had heard him more clearly: an oblique confession is always a plea. But I was to hurt a great many people by being unable to imagine that anyone could possibly be in love with an ugly boy like me. To be valued is one thing, the recognition of this assessment demanding, essentially, an act of the will. But love is another matter: it is scarcely worth observing what a mockery love makes of the will. Leaving all that alone, however: when he was dead, I realized that I would have done anything whatever to have been able to hold him in this world."

Being able to read James Baldwin is a privilege.