Remembering Edmund White

White died two days ago and, while I am no expert, I thought I would share a few thoughts on what I know of his work. I have read two of his books: his fairly short (about 160 pages) biography of Proust and one of his memoirs: City Boy. 

City Boy is White’s memoir of his life in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s; most of what is described occurs during that period between the Stonewall Riots and the emergence of HIV/AIDS. This is a very different book from Armistead Maupin’s Tales of the City which focuses on teh

Reading City Boy, one learns about what it was like to find housing in Manhattan, what it was like to work for TimeLife Books, and what it was like to be gay and sexually promiscous at the time. There is a lot about sex in this book. At points, the book feels like a zombie story where you lose track of the plot and just note the large number of bodies.

About his job in the publishing industry, White says:

“Officially we worked from ten to six, but I could never get in until eleven … I spent the whole day wasting time. A two-hour lunch. Endless coffee breaks with other writers and researchers” (p. 9).

White had no enthusiasm for his job, but he seemed to have two great dreams: to become a writer and to be as sexually active as he could each night. He certainly worked very hard at both. There is even a brief encounter with Vladimir Nabokov who tells him he admired his first novel, Forgetting Elena, but does not consent to have his opinion put in a blurb. White’s writing is filled with amazing prose. At one point he admits that he hired hustlers rather than cruise for sex so he could have more time to write. Decide for yourself what that means.

Edmund White is not for everyone — he clearly was writing for other gay men, and he did admit later he was too focused on white men and did not pay enough attention to gays of color or the working class. But I do think one should read at least something Edmund White has written and City Boy is a good place to start.