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An autobiographical novel that reads like a memoir, partly because it's quite disconnected. In the introduction to the Picador edition, White writes that a woman at a reading once told him, in praise, "You skip over the important parts and dwell on the minor things. It's like rubato in music." This does work in a novel about childhood (the unnamed boy is 15 or 16 years old at the end) because that's what children do.
It was groundbreaking at the time of publication (1982) because there was still ...more
It was groundbreaking at the time of publication (1982) because there was still ...more
I listened to an Audible version of this book and found it charming. It takes skill to describe a child realising that he was homosexual and in this book it was beautifully rendered. White seemed to blur the lines between memoir and fiction, making the story more generalised than one boy's story and yet the details about what was going through the mind of such a precocious young man are artful and amazing. I look forward to reading more from this intriguing writer.
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I can see why this book is beloved, especially by the LGBTQIA community. I believe that Edmund White broke through some concrete walls with this story. Unfortunately it made me very uncomfortable -- not because it was LGBTQIA, but because it was a bit too explicit for me. I don't really enjoy sex scenes that are so vividly described -- straight or gay.
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May 13, 2011
Charisma
marked it as to-read
Dec 21, 2011
Judith
marked it as to-read
May 17, 2017
Karen
marked it as to-read
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review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books-2008-edition
Jun 17, 2017
Yvonne
marked it as to-read
Jan 13, 2018
Sorobai
marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2021
Christoffer Jacobsen
marked it as to-read
Dec 03, 2023
Emrys
marked it as to-read
Oct 10, 2024
Naga Sravika Bodapati
marked it as to-read
