I'll admit upfront, Edmund White isn't always my favorite gay author. But this novel is quite a gorgeous little thing. Ostensibly the American writer Stephen Crane at one point wrote (or spoke of writing) a book about male prostitution in turn-of-the-century New York City. White creates a fictional world in which Crane, dying of tuberculosis, dictates this piece of fiction to his "wife" hoping it will provide her with some income after his death. White has clearly done his homework, and the sections about the boy prostitute feel as real and vital as Crane's own reporting. It makes you wish that Crane had actually managed to write such a book. In its absence, we have White's lovely time projection. as textured and profound as anything he's ever written.