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26th out of 693 books
—
848 voters
A Boy's Own Story (The Edmund Trilogy #1)
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 al...more
The nameless narrator in this deeply affecting work reminisces about growing up in the 1950s with emotionally al...more
Paperback, 218 pages
Published
May 30th 2000
by Vintage Books USA
(first published 1982)
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Edmund White portrays his younger life in a narcotic and poetic style. not exactly the most flattering self-portrait... the protagonist's travails are emotionally affecting yet he remains creepily distanced from the events and people in his own life - in particular from his equally creepy, distant, self-absorbed father. the apple does not fall far from the tree, i suppose. overall, the language is some of the most beautiful, in my experience, of all of gay fiction - rivaling even Giovanni's Room...more
34 likes · like · see review
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There's a kind of bittersweet loneliness/excitement at sexual awakening that most gays will intrinsically understand and that White always manages to caputure so perfectly. Somehow, he romances the unromantic, charming us with images of cruising in parks and getting STD's.
An account of growing up queer when growing up queer wasn't as mainstream as it is today. I think will appeal almost universally to a gay audience, but also to anyone who has felt different or like an outsider. It also deals with some interesting father-son issues.
This wasn’t what I expected to find when I picked this book. I expected a story based on a real life experience…what it turned out to be was a collection of anecdotes from a life, tied together loosely through a vaguely chronological perspective and a bunch of generously worded descriptions of people, emotions and locations.
The narrative is personal and from the foreword we learn that it is indeed an autobiographical story. The author also lets us know that he was an addict while he wrote this...more
The narrative is personal and from the foreword we learn that it is indeed an autobiographical story. The author also lets us know that he was an addict while he wrote this...more
This book starts out well, giving an interesting evokation of a gay man's youth in the Midwest, small town America, but when the main character enters boarding school, it veers off course and I lost interest. In the end, White's story supposedly autobiographical comes off as a bit difficult to believe, as though halfway into the composition he decided his goal was not to write a realist rendering of his life, but to shock and be sensationalist. Perhaps in the time it was written, there was some...more
Edmund White is the type of writer who freely uses words like “uxorious” in his novels without batting an eyelash. Thus it’s small wonder it was such a chore for me to plod through this book back as a young twentysomething - my little punkass simply wasn’t ready for such writerly erudition and I henceforth banned Mr. White to the shameful rank of Privileged Irrelevant Old Gay White Male Writer (PIOGWMW), basically the literary equivalent of a Sweater Queen to my judgmental young mind. But that’s...more
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The last of White's novels that I picked up, and to be honest I wasn't expecting any surprises. Was I stupid! I sometimes cringe when I hear this book praised as if it were the first and best thing White ever wrote...but it is a masterpiece. After the somewhat fervid manner of 'Nocturnes for the King of Naples' (still my favorite of his books) White took to heart Isherwood's advice to write more plainly. The style he achieves in this book is a marvel. A formal chasteness that doesn't trammel lyr...more
Sep 04, 2007
Haengbok92
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
people who grew up to the beat of their own drummers
Shelves:
mainstreamliterary
This book is chock-full of beautiful prose and a cast of varied and unique characters that cling to you after the pages are closed. It's a window into the life of a young homosexual boy growing up in the fifties, his relationships with his parents, friends, and other mentors--both positive and negative--in his life. I think there is a lot to relate to here, whether you are gay, straight, or bi. Some sections definitely made me laugh out loud, others raised by eyebrows to my hairline.
At the same...more
At the same...more
To be sixteen again, curled up on a bed devouring a novel in one afternoon! Of course, in 1982--the year ABOS was published--few gay-themed novels were readily available. I was lucky to live in an area with a public library that stocked the book. The 1980s: the apex of gay fiction (written by gay men for gay men). A celebration of the American spirit, with a homoerotic twist. The essence of individuality. Man versus society. American authors fed us the antihero (from surname-less Ishmael to drop...more
Mar 28, 2012
La Stamberga dei Lettori
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
tancredi
Prima parte di una tetralogia autobiografica, questa storia di un giovane americano si distingue per la sua accecante bellezza in un panorama ricco di storie simili.
Il racconto scordinato, non progressivo cronologicamente, con salti improvvisi avanti e indietro nel tempo, scardina di fatto la classica struttura del bildungsroman, liberandolo dalle grinfie del genere e permettendogli di librarsi in volo. I pochi, ma sostanziosi capitoli, sono quasi delle storie indipendenti, che mostrano lo stes...more
Il racconto scordinato, non progressivo cronologicamente, con salti improvvisi avanti e indietro nel tempo, scardina di fatto la classica struttura del bildungsroman, liberandolo dalle grinfie del genere e permettendogli di librarsi in volo. I pochi, ma sostanziosi capitoli, sono quasi delle storie indipendenti, che mostrano lo stes...more
I found this autobiographical novel interesting, having read it as a very young man myself, in 1982. White's somewhat lyrical and evocative narrative has been considered one of the great pieces of LGBT literature. And I will agree that it was a captivating novel.
I am uncertain of the whole "great LGBT literature" concept itself, because many of those books that get categorised with White's work are not, in my opinion, of the same calibre or literary style of this book. White writes in the style...more
I am uncertain of the whole "great LGBT literature" concept itself, because many of those books that get categorised with White's work are not, in my opinion, of the same calibre or literary style of this book. White writes in the style...more
"A memoir of gay teen's coming out journey in the 50s" might sound a bit precious, or pretentious, or too navel-gazing. It is all of those things, for better or worse. But the prose is stunning - florid, and perhaps too studied and measured for even the most precocious teen, but that's its strength. White's use of language is lyrical, dreamlike (almost narcotic), surprising and yet precise.
On one of his sexual encounters:
"Well yeah, but since there aren't any girls around." I felt like a scient...more
On one of his sexual encounters:
"Well yeah, but since there aren't any girls around." I felt like a scient...more
Prima parte di una tetralogia autobiografica, questa storia di un giovane americano si distingue per la sua accecante bellezza in un panorama ricco di storie simili.
Il racconto scordinato, non progressivo cronologicamente, con salti improvvisi avanti e indietro nel tempo, scardina di fatto la classica struttura del bildungsroman, liberandolo dalle grinfie del genere e permettendogli di librarsi in volo. I pochi, ma sostanziosi capitoli, sono quasi delle storie indipendenti, che mostrano lo stess...more
Il racconto scordinato, non progressivo cronologicamente, con salti improvvisi avanti e indietro nel tempo, scardina di fatto la classica struttura del bildungsroman, liberandolo dalle grinfie del genere e permettendogli di librarsi in volo. I pochi, ma sostanziosi capitoli, sono quasi delle storie indipendenti, che mostrano lo stess...more
A Boys Own Story by Edmund White
2 stars
The narrator is a teenage boy growing up in blue collar America in the 1940's or 50's. Things around him are changing and he doesn't know what to do, mainly with is sexuality. He isn't the only one at the time trying to deal with being gay but this is his story. After coming to terms with his reliance on his mother he convinces his father to send him to boarding school where he tries desperately to fit in but after a year he hasn't gotten much further of...more
2 stars
The narrator is a teenage boy growing up in blue collar America in the 1940's or 50's. Things around him are changing and he doesn't know what to do, mainly with is sexuality. He isn't the only one at the time trying to deal with being gay but this is his story. After coming to terms with his reliance on his mother he convinces his father to send him to boarding school where he tries desperately to fit in but after a year he hasn't gotten much further of...more
First-- I pretty much am always embarrassed for old white guy authors who write bad black dialect (how can you not cringe on something like "Good. I goan back to mah TV shows."). Otherwise, this is a book for which I'm decidedly not the target audience, but it was there in the library and I figured I ought to read some E. White at some point, so here we are. The descriptions of people and settings are often pristine; absolutely precise, vivid, evocative. The narrative kind of slogs along and inv...more
Mar 07, 2010
K.D. Oliveros
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommended to K.D. by:
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die
A book about a gay boy in the US during the 50's. This coming-of-age story is peppered with lyrical prose and said to be an instant hit when it was first published in 1982. Considering that the setting of the story is in the heartland of the conservative US and it was in the 50's (before the rock n roll era), the difficulties that the author of this semi-autobiographical novel went through to fight for his desire to be loved (by men including his father) are something worth knowing. As the blurb...more
- Something about White's style wasn't my favorite. I felt like he took some philosophical turns that I didn't always get.
- I also found him being attracted to his father very bizarre. I don't think he needed to be psychoanalyzed for his homosexuality, but he clearly had other issues.
- It was an interesting account of what it meant to grow up as a gay man in the middle of the 20th century. I did find it odd about how self-aware and accepting of his homosexuality he was. He didn't like that other...more
- I also found him being attracted to his father very bizarre. I don't think he needed to be psychoanalyzed for his homosexuality, but he clearly had other issues.
- It was an interesting account of what it meant to grow up as a gay man in the middle of the 20th century. I did find it odd about how self-aware and accepting of his homosexuality he was. He didn't like that other...more
I think the book was enjoyable and certainly broadens the mind.
However it was quite possible one of the single most self indulgent novels I've ever read.
I also found the novel flicked around moving between subjects - which is an effective technique - though it was sometimes executed rather clumsily. The stream, which should have been smooth, became jagged through poor connections and redundant paragraphs informing the reader on matters the author had already spent effort enlightening us on. Th...more
However it was quite possible one of the single most self indulgent novels I've ever read.
I also found the novel flicked around moving between subjects - which is an effective technique - though it was sometimes executed rather clumsily. The stream, which should have been smooth, became jagged through poor connections and redundant paragraphs informing the reader on matters the author had already spent effort enlightening us on. Th...more
If he wasn't writing about gay men, he would be as famous as any major modern author. From what I've read of the modern canon, he and Toni Morrison are the best writers. I didn't mind the nonlinear, even random, sequencing of the book. His metaphors and imagery are so stunning and so specific. The book isn't the most emotional, by design I imagine, but you can identify with his passing summations of what the character is feeling at any given moment. White really spells out what it's like, more t...more
Although the story is set in the 1950s, I found a lot of things to identify with the un-named narrator of this book. As a boy I also used my vivid imagination to cope with the vagaries of my life as nerdy kid who excelled academically but plodded along in everything else. Ironic, because I also had a sexual precocity that no one knew how, especially me, to handle. One also cannot help but notice the graceful and faultless language of the writer. This is a profoundly powerful novel. And when I le...more
loved: intricate observations of how people look ("Mr. Pouchet had very full lips the color of raspberry ice when it's still in the carton, before it's licked lighter"), the dramatic irony observed by being an adult reader wise to the scams that the protagonist is about to fall for, the teenage discovery of atheism ("But the charming intricacy of a myth is not sufficient to compel belief. I found no good reason to assume that the ultimate nature of reality happens to resemble the backstage of an...more
This is the first book of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels. A quick read about growing-up "abnormally" and emotionally isolated during the conservative 1950s and his relationships with his divorced parents, a group of friends and his psychiatrist who said that he could cure his homosexuality. I didn't quite enjoy the book but it's worth the time though. Favorite parts include the encounter between him and his friend Kevin and the night when the narrator(obviously the author of c...more
This is an amusing "way back before your time when I was younger than you (if you can imagine that), sonny..." story. In this case, boy actually MEANS boy and detailed accounts of pre-adolescent boys "corn-holing" each other before the seventies kind of surprised me.
This book is a gay classic and Edmund White is a gay icon. I had been meaning to get around to him as a sort of educational obligation. I read this book 2 years ago, and I suspect I'll pick up the next book or his biography of Jean G...more
This book is a gay classic and Edmund White is a gay icon. I had been meaning to get around to him as a sort of educational obligation. I read this book 2 years ago, and I suspect I'll pick up the next book or his biography of Jean G...more
A collection of anecdotes and vignettes strung together to tell a story of a boy growing up gay in 1950's Midwest, small town America. While it started off great, with stories of his home life, especially his relationship with his father. But by the time he got to boarding school, the narrative becomes very convoluted and disconnected at times. We are suddenly introduced to numerous tragic and off-beat characters in a short amount of time. These characters, whether positive or negative influence...more
An enjoyable little bildungsroman, from the vantage point of a gay child/teenager from a wealthy but broken family. White's style inclines to the good, but he can be a bit too 'knowing' at times--his cultural reference points seem to be his own, rather than his protagonist's, at times. I realize this is at least in part a loosely autobiographical novel, but there were moments where I'd find myself thinking "Does this 13 year old boy really know anything about Proust?" and those moments did take...more
I don't know what the deal was. I just couldn't get into it. I really liked The Beautiful Room is Empty. This one seemed more fragmented. I started getting into the second half, when he went off to boarding school. That was when the pace started to pick up.
I didn't care much for his relationship with his father, though it played a role later in his life. It was kind of interesting that he fantasized about being his father's lover, not unlike Allen Ginsberg. I haven't heard much about a homosexu...more
I didn't care much for his relationship with his father, though it played a role later in his life. It was kind of interesting that he fantasized about being his father's lover, not unlike Allen Ginsberg. I haven't heard much about a homosexu...more
A gritty journey of a boy into a young man. It is like a train wreck: You can't look, you cant look away. *Contains Spoilers* I have mixed feelings towards this text.
I found that the protagonist unpleasant and manipulative Dispite this White does have a way with words, we can get a good sense of his characters and locations. White is very articulate, this book is very well crafted. Giving us powerful insight into the devides between gender, race and wealth. What kept me going is to see where Wh...more
I found that the protagonist unpleasant and manipulative Dispite this White does have a way with words, we can get a good sense of his characters and locations. White is very articulate, this book is very well crafted. Giving us powerful insight into the devides between gender, race and wealth. What kept me going is to see where Wh...more
I wanted to like this book. I really did. White can write beautifully, but it often feels overwrought and comes of as trying too hard to be "literary." There isn't much of a plot and the story(ies) loop(s) around back and forth between the varying life events (he's 15, then he's 7, then he's some undeterminate age, then he's 13, then he's 16)so it's hard to keep the timeline straight in your head. The redeeming quality was really the narrator. His insights where beautiful and often heart-breakin...more
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I can see why this book was quite a sensation in its time.It no doubt spoke to many who had similar experiences coming to terms with their own "sexual orientation".(What a strange term! Like the author,I was also a kid in the '50s in the Midwest and trust me, noone "oriented" you to anything remotely sexual, let alone the Evil Sin of Homosexuality!) The writing in this book is fantastic, and therein lies both my greatest praise and only (minor) difficulty :this kid was awfully intellectual/analy...more
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Edmund White's novels include Fanny: A Fiction, A Boy's Own Story, The Farewell Symphony, and A Married Man. He is also the author of a biography of Jean Genet, a study of Marcel Proust, The Flâneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris, and, most recently, his memoir, My Lives. Having lived in Paris for many years, he is now a New Yorker and teaches at Princeton University. He was also a membe...more
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“When we are young... we often experience things in the present with a nostalgia-in-advance, but we seldom guess what we will truly prize years from now.”
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