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Edmund White (1940 - )
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 A
Boy's Own Story (Vintage International) by
Edmund White
An instant
classic upon its original publication, A Boy's Own Story is
the first of Edmund White's highly acclaimed trilogy of
autobiographical novels that brilliantly evoke a young man's
coming of age and document American gay life through the last
forty years.
The nameless narrator in this deeply affecting work reminisces
about growing up in the 1950s with emotionally aloof, divorced
parents, an unrelenting sister, and the schoolmates who taunt him.
He finds consolation in literature and his fantastic imagination.
Eager to cultivate intimate, enduring friendships, he becomes
aware of his yearning to be loved by men, and struggles with the
guilt and shame of accepting who he is. Written with lyrical
delicacy and extraordinary power, A Boy's Own Story is a
triumph.
 The
Farewell Symphony : A Novel by
Edmund White
Edmund
White has long been praised as one of America's most accomplished
novelists. The Farewell Symphony is the final volume in the
autobiographical trilogy that began with A
Boy's Own Story and The
Beautiful Room Is Empty. It details the narrator's life in
New York in the 1970s and his flight to Paris as the AIDS epidemic
begins. White's prose, at once lucid and magical, is the essence
of great writing. Its plainspoken cadences and language resonate
with the tragedy of youthful passion giving way to hard-earned
knowledge. Like Sherwood Anderson or Theodore Dreiser, White has
captured the soul of the American experience--in this case a gay
male experience--and made it into art.
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Short Biography
Excerpt:
Edmund White was born on January 19, 1940 in
Cincinnati, Ohio. His parents divorced when White was seven years
old. He moved with his mother and sister to Evanston. He has
written of searching for books in the Evanston Public Library
about homosexuality and found only Thomas Mann's Death in Venice
and a biography of Nijinski. Neither book painted an attractive
picture of life as a homosexual and did not ease his desperation
as he tried to piece together his identity.
White was schooled at Cranbrook Academy and then studied at the
University of Michigan (his major was Chinese). He moved to New
York City and embarked on a five year relationship with another
man. From 1962 - 1970, White worked for Time-Life Books. After a
year in Rome, White came back to the U.S. and worked as an editor
at The Saturday Review and Horizon. He and six other
gay writers in New York formed the Violet Quill in the
mid-1970's./ This group included Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro,
Felice Picano, George Whitmore, Christopher Cox, and Michael
Grumley. The Violet Quill met in the apartments of its members
where they read and offered critiques of each other's work...
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By Edmund White
Excerpt:
Jean Genet's attitude towards homosexuality
underwent many modifications during the course of his eventful
life - but also as his ideas were influenced by the societal
changes occurring around him. In his novels he presents the
role-playing, sado-maso-chistic form of homosexuality that he
learned in reform school and prison. Whereas other ex-cons
deplored the violence of prison, made pleas for reform, and
bitterly denounced the forced homosexuality of an all-male penal
society, Genet was virtually the only one to defend the system; as
he put it, "As for me, I've chosen; I will be on the side of
crime. And I'll help children not to gain entrance into your
houses, your factories, your laws and holy sacraments, but to
violate them."
As a teenager in the prison colony of Mettray,
he was sought after by the other boys because he was attractive -
and possibly because he was a real homosexual who took a genuine
pleasure in the sexual acts he was forced into. He was treated as
"a high-born lady" by his rough admirers. Because he was
a romantic by nature and more in search of love than sexual
release, Genet consistently finds tender significance in even the
smallest gesture...
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By Kay Bonetti, Missouri Review
Introduction:
Edmund White's critically acclaimed fiction has
earned him a number of honors and awards during his career. He has
twice received the Hopwood Awards (1961 and 1962), Ingram Merrill
grants (1973 and 1978), 'was a Guggenheim fellow in 1983, and in
that same year received the American Academy and Institute of Arts
and Letters award for fiction. His major works include five
novels, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of
Naples, A Boy's Own Story, Caracole, and The
Beautiful Room . Empty as well as a short story collection, The
Darker Proof, a play, "The Blue Boy in Black," and
the nonfiction Argument for a Myth. He is a frequent
contributor of articles and reviews to periodicals, as well. After
being based in Paris for a number of years, Mr. White has returned
to join the faculty at Brown University, where he currently
teaches.
This interview was conducted by Kay Bonetti, Director of the
American Audio Prose Library series, on June 2, 1989 at the
Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The Prose Library offers
tapes of American authors reading and discussing their Work. For
information contact AAPL at PO Box 842, Columbia, MO 65205.
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With News and Reviews From the Archives of The
New York Times
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Names Index:
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