"The Selected Writings of Jean Genet" by Edmund White is arguably the best book to read if you are not familiar with Genet's writing. White is a biographer of Genet, but more importantly he is a great fan. The book includes his brief comments at the beginning of all the excerpts, which include portions of novels, plays, short stories, essays, and an interview. The comments lay out some background information which a first-time Genet reader will find useful. After reading this book, I read many of Genet's works and each time found myself referring to "Selected Writings" for added help in understanding and analysis

The Beautiful Room is Empty by Edmund White is a wonderful additon to the inspired A Boy's Own Story. It is not exactly a sequel but it does loosely form the middle in a semi-autobiographical trilogy (between A Boy's Own Story and A Farewll Symphony). All can be read and enjoyed on their own but also fit together smoothly to take the reader through different times in the life of a gay man. This volume takes the reader from the repressive fifties into the time of Stonewall as the main character grows from a young man in the midwestern college into a gay urbanite going to the gym. The growth of the narrator is more honest and well written than in many gay novels and will resonate with the reader with painful or humourous , at different times, recognition whether he grew up in that era or not. It is a fine novel that plays all the right notes.

This book is the second in the trilogy beginning with A Boy's Own Story and ending with The Farewell Symphony. To get the full impact,read them in sequence.White is one of the finest writers on his subjects, both in language and content. The era of the 60's from the buttoned down end of the Eisenhower era to the Stonewall Uprising are compellingly seen through one man's eyes. (White was a participant in Stonewall and the book ends on that note.)Read this book and you will learn or remember a lot.

This is the second book in an autobiographical-fiction trilogy by Edmund White. The first book, A Boy's Own Story--was an amazing read, but this sequel turned out to be even better. This picks up shortly after ABOS left off, and continues right up through the riots at Stonewall. I cannot tell you any better about the plot, because, like life in the span it covers, it consists of a great many events. The mood of the book is absorbing, and as beatiful as the tittle ("The Beautiful Room is Empty" is one of the best titles I've heard, along with those like "Silence of the Lambs" and "Something Wicked This Way Comes.") It is also an essential work--as all of White's are--in understanding gay literature. White is truly one of the best writers the genre has ever seen, and will be one of the fathers and inspirations of what will come later.

"Daniel Deronda" is George Eliot's last and, perhaps, most ambitious novel. It has great literary merit, but I do not think it is her best work. The novel contrasts the lax moral attitudes of the British aristocracy with the focused dedication of the Jewish Zionists. Given the typical anti-Semitic sentiments in Victorian England, and the little known world of the Jews and the Zionist Movement, Ms. Eliot's made a brave and idealistic effort by writing this book.

Ms. Elliot describes the lives of British Jews, a society-within-a-society, of which most of her contemporaries were oblivious, through her hero Daniel Deronda. Through her heroine, Gwendolyn Harleth, who marries for money and power rather than love, Eliot explores a side of human relations that leads only to despair.

Daniel sees Gwendolyn, for the first time, at a roulette table. He is fascinated by her classical, blonde English beauty, and vivacious, self-assured manner. When Ms. Harleth is forced to sell her necklace to pay gambling debts, Deronda, a disapproving observer, buys back the jewelry, anonymously, and returns it to her. This is not the last time the deeply spiritual and altruistic Deronda will feel a need to rescue Gwendolyn.

Daniel was adopted by an English gentleman at an early age. He has received affection, a good education, and to some extent, position, from his guardian. However, Deronda has never been told the story of his true parentage, and sorely feels this lack of roots and his own identity. Not content to play the gentleman, he always appears to be searching for a purpose in life.

Daniel's and Gwendolyn's lives intersect throughout the novel. They feel a strong mutual attraction initially, but Gwendolyn, with incredible passivity, decides to marry someone she knows is a scoundrel, for his wealth. The decision will haunt her as her life becomes a nightmare with the sadistic Mr. Harcourt, her husband.

At about the same time, Daniel inadvertently saves a young woman from suicide. He finds young Mirah Lapidoth, near drowning, by the river and takes her to a friend's home to recover. There she is made welcome and asked to stay. She is a Jewess, abducted from her mother years before, by her father, who wanted to use the child's talent as a singer to earn money. When young Mirah forced her voice beyond its limits, and lost her ability to sing, her father abandoned her. She has never been able to reunite with her mother and brother, and was alone and destitute, until Daniel found her. Daniel, in his search for Mirah's family, meets the Cohens, a Jewish shop owner and his kin. Deronda feels an immediate affinity with them and visits often. He also comes to know a Jewish philosopher and Zionist, Mordecai, and they forge a strong bond of friendship.

Daniel finally does discover his identity, and has a very poignant and strange meeting with his mother. He had been actively taking steps to make a meaningful existence for himself, and with the new information about his parents and heritage, he leaves England with a wife, for a new homeland and future.

One of the novel's most moving scenes is when Daniel and Gwendolyn meet for the last time. Gwendolyn has grown from a self-centered young woman to a mature, thoughtful adult, who has suffered and grown strong.

The author is one of my favorites and her writing is exceptional. This particular novel, however, became occasionally tedious with Ms. Eliot's monologues, and the book's length. Her characters are fascinating, original as always, and well drawn. The contrast between the lives of the British aristocracy, the emerging middle class, and the Jewish community gives the reader an extraordinary glimpse into three totally different worlds in Victorian England. A fine book and a wonderful reading experience.

Daniel Deronda is a brave piece of literature. It attempts to chronicle the budding Zionist movement and anti-semitic attitudes of Victorian society, and combine it with a more traditional George Eliot soul-searching story of a young woman (a gentile who has a complex relationship with Daniel Deronda, the young Englishman who discovers he is a Jew). While many people have quibbled about various details of the story, with some justification, the overall impact is one of awe. It's amazing how an accomplished writer defies popular criticism and explores a subject matter which was, at the time, politically incorrect.

Strictly speaking, Daniel Deronda isn't quite the same level of immaculate fiction as Middlemarch. So I think George Eliot fans will be somewhat disappointed. But on the positive side, the book is much more accessible (ie, easier to read). And the subject matter makes it required reading for everyone interested in modern Judaism/Zionism. It's fascinating to compare how Jews were perceived during the mid-1800s relative to today (..in western Europe).

Finally, the Penguin Classic edition of Daniel Deronda has both great Notes and Introductory sections (which, oddly, is supposed to be read AFTER reading the book).

George Eliot's last novel is nothing less than extraordinary. The most obvious thing is that most of it is a thumpingly good read, especially the first third - witty,lively and devoid of Eliot's sometimes irritating commentaries (Eliot has an amazing mind, and her comments can both fascinate and slow the speed of the narrative). We seem to be in a decaying world of Jane Austen, with a descendant of her Emma Wodehouse - silly, headstrong, egotistical yet alluring Gwendolen Harleth.

The tension heightens when Gwendolen finally marries Grandcourt, and both she and the reader realise she has made the most ghastly mistake. Brilliantly, Eliot portrays in disturbing detail the psychological twists and turns of the relationship, as the 'powerful' Gwendolen finds herself trapped by a silent sado-masochist. Grandcourt is actually shown to do very little out of place - which is the achievement - and we are left to imagine what Gwendolen must be going through in the bedroom. We become enmeshed in her consciousness - not always a pleasant experience. It is a brave novel for its time.

The rest of the novel concerns the eponymous Daniel, his discovery of his identity as a Jew, and his final mission to devote himself to his race. It is thought-provoking, and interesting, and much has been said about how the way the novel is really two stories. The problem really is that the Gwendolen part is so well done that a reader feels disappointed to leave her and join the less enthralling Daniel.

The ending doesn't quite thrill as other moments of the book do, and there is an over-long section relating the conversation of a philosophy society, but, thanks to Gwendolen and Grandcourt, it stands out as one of the most memorable pieces of literature in English. Take away the 'Daniel' part and it is Eliot's masterpiece - and great material for the cinema. Maybe it's because she played the aforementioned Emma, but Gwyneth Paltrow could do a fantastic job as Gwendolen - just imagine her playing the great scene where the melodramatic diamonds arrive on her wedding night, and she goes beserk and throws them around!

A versatile and engaging anthology of stories about gay relationships. Some author names included here will surprise you (Henry James? but his "Pupil" is one of the most amusing and engaging stories), others will delight you (W. Burroughs' "Wild Boys."). Edmund White, a prominent gay writer, thankfully included his own short story, "Skinner Alive," into this collection, and I fell in love with his lyrical style. He displays great taste in editing this collection, and provides an insightful foreword. Every story here brings an interesting nuance to the genre, and each one holds surprises for the reader. This isn't just a book for the collection of short gay and lesbian fiction... this is a book of great short fiction - no more definition needed.

This review is primarily an endorsement of Anna Otto's December 5, 2000 review of this book. I don't think her review could be improved upon except perhaps for one quote from Christopher Isherwood's 'Mr. Lancaster' which holds forth the promise of universality: "What I am has refashioned itself throughout the days and years, and until now almost all that remains constant is the mere awareness of being conscious. And that consciousness belongs to everybody; it isn't a particular person." Mr. Lancaster's statement is surely a promise to gay people of all ages, and to the friends and parents of gays.

...I don't think her review could be improved upon except perhaps for one quote from Christopher Isherwood's 'Mr. Lancaster' which holds forth the promise of universality: "What I am has refashioned itself throughout the days and years, and until now almost all that remains constant is the mere awareness of being conscious. And that consciousness belongs to everybody; it isn't a particular person." Mr. Lancaster's statement is surely a promise to gay people of all ages, and to the friends and parents of gays.

I love deceptive books.

Example: _Our Paris_, by Edmund White and Hubert Sorin, is ostensibly a series of short essays, written and illustrated in a fairly direct style, pertaining to life in the city. But in a stunning, disarming preface, White alerts us to the real subtext: his partner's slow death from AIDS. It's this subtext that transforms the book from a pleasant travelogue to a devastating account of loss.

Lurking beneath the book's shimmering surfaces, and within its numerous lacunae, is the emotional life of a couple threatened by the fast-approaching specter of death. An attentive reading of White's text and Hubert Sorin's illustrations reveals the mauvaise foi, the daily negotiations, the implicit contract of domestic denial that enables an endangered couple to keep death at bay for just a little longer.

_Our Paris_ looks slight, as if it were merely a pleasant evening's worth of travel anecdotes and gossip. But if you take yourself into this book's confidence, it will reveal unexpected secrets.

I picked up this little book for a return flight from Paris to LA. It looked like perfect plane reading -- short, gossipy, topical. And although it lived up to each of those expectations, the devastation implicit in the book (and explicit at the end) hit hard. The book is not easily forgettable -- and probably no less memorable for the passengers and crew of American Airlines flight 45 who watched me become a sniffling, tear-stained disaster.

It's very intimate, shockingly un-French. White and Sorin invite you into their lives. You feel as if you're at a dinner party listening to them recount(even bicker a little about) their recent mundane adventures. But this intimacy also means that you feel very close to the heartbreaking loss that is the real subject of the book.

It's a beautiful, touching book. The illustrations complement the text (or the text complements the illustrations) perfectly. But if you want to avoid the mess entirely, try The Flaneur.

This is a sweet collection of short pieces, quirky and personal, about a tiny Parisian neighborhood, Paris itself, the French, lots of friends, and a great dog named Fred. Most of all: about Edmund White and his lover Hubert Sorin. Economical yet enjoyably gossipy, kind-hearted, opinionated, informative. Achingly sad, though, because Hubert is dying of AIDS, and in fact does die at the book's end. Definitely worth reading -- especially for fans of Edmund White. Engagingly illustrated by Sorin, who was trained in architecture and took up drawing when he became ill.

My first impression, upon picking up this biography of Edmund White, was that the Stephen Barber's writing is terribly over-wrought -- the introduction of the book, in which Barber tries to explain White's importance to contemporary literature, is some of the purplest prose I've read in a long time.

But Barber's writing improves markedly when he begins telling the story of White's life. The most interesting aspect of the book, to me, is Barber's descriptions of White's early fictional efforts, and his writing habits; you'll read about the novel White wrote in high school; you'll learn that White was often drunk or stoned when he wrote his early novels, and that even to this day White generally limits himself to writing a few pages per day in the expensive blank books he purchases from a Paris stationer. You'll read about White's encounters with writers as diverse as Michel Foucault, Vladimir Nabokov (who named White as one of his favorite young novelists, much to White's surprise), and Michael Ondaatje (whose own writing habits are similar to White's). Your impression, gleaned from White's novels, that he is an extremely decent person who is quite fallible but gifted with an immense talent, will be confirmed by Barber's account. Also surprising is Barber's description of how sexually voracious White was from a very early age. Apparently White felt the need to tone down his self-depiction in "A Boy's Own Story," to make his character seem more representative of typical adolescents.

In summary, this is a worthy biography of White, once you get past the somewhat amateurish writing style (which is why I'm giving it only four stars). But you shouldn't order it unless you're very interested in White -- otherwise, you will learn enough about White from his own novels.

Edmund White: The Burning World, by Stephen Barber

Edmund White's iconic status within a gay ethos extends far beyond those defined boundaries to his acceptance by the literary world as one of the major writers of our times. White's elegantly stylised novels, each employing a language particular to a time and place, as well as his non-fiction preoccupations as biographer to Genet and Proust, have led to the creation of an integral body of work. White's writings are as individual as they are vital to our reading of mortality in the late 20th century.

Stephen Barber's exceptionally well-pitched critical biography of White is both a work of literary merit and the ideal companion to its subject's life and achievements. Barber has for several years been one of our best critical writers on the nature of the modern city. The Burning World is creative criticism at its best, and Barber's understanding of the city and its sensations as determining creative language is central to his thesis on White's fiction.

During his formative writing years in a 1960's New York, White wrote five unpublished novels before Forgetting Elena was accepted for publication in 1972. Barber interestingly points to Fire Island being the inspirational site to this work, and to White's obsession with islands in general as representing the precinct in which to set a novel. Two more of his books, Nocturnes For The King of Naples, and Caracole, were to be less specifically identified with place, but to occupy undisclosed insular settings.

Barber rightly sees White's first four novels, with their rich textured poetic prose, as 'a unique document of the imagination in its compulsive interaction with the human body.' It was the third of these books, A Boy's Own Story 1982, which won White not only critical acclaim but a confirmed gay readership.

Crucial to Barber in the development of White as a person and writer was his move to Paris in 1983, the city in which he continues to live and write for half of each year. White, who was diagnosed HIV-positive in 1985, for a while considered his death to be imminent. Yet he found Paris sufficiently psychologically regenerative to encourage him to form new relationships, and to write new books. One of these was the elegiac The Beautiful Room Is Empty, a novel in which White first employed the medium of stripped down communicative prose which he continues to use today.

Another legacy of White's Paris years, begun in 1986 and completed seven years later was his monumental 700 page study of the French writer and criminal Jean Genet. Barber is profoundly insightful on White's grand Genet biography, and provides an illuminating commentary on the interactive chemistry triggered by one great writer overhauling the other's complex and elusive life.

Barber sensitively highlights White's most enduring relationships, including the one with Hubert Sorin, whose death from AIDS in 1993 was to leave White devastated. White's ability to keep on endlessly recreating himself, and adapting to the survival measures necessary for a gay man to outlive an AIDS generation, proves the pivot on which Barber's study rests.

This is a book to be recommended, not only to Edmund White's many readers, but to those who care for the valency of a new critical language finding its rapport with a constantly exciting subject.

Jeremy Reed

This is a great literary biography. It combines solid research into the life and work of Edmund White, one of the most imaginative and passionate gay writers of the last half century, with the kind of human touches that bring biography alive. Stephen Barber moves effortlessly from White's life to his work and back again, painting a fascinating portrait not only of White's own adventures and career, but providing the reader with profound insights into the bigger picture of gay life and culture in America and Paris, from Stonewall to AIDS and beyond. The discussion of White's writing stays fresh and relevant to his literary ideals and the context of his life - it makes you want to go back and read his books all over again. The book is also fairly balanced - it avoids taking sides in the bitter debates that have raged over what gay male culture and identity should be, and instead tries to present a range of different perspectives and possibilities. Readable, entertaining, informative and thought-provoking - I highly recommend this book.

There are two "losses" here: the author's loss of his first love, a kind man named James, to impulsive infidelity (the author's); and the world's loss, that of author Michael Grumley, to AIDS, ten years ago. This autobiographical novel is many things: well-written, simply told, generous to his quite wonderful family and the place he grew up in. It's also heartbreaking because the reader knows from the outset that Grumley has died of AIDS; the introduction is a beautiful one, a eulogy really, by Edmund White. A good book for gay teenagers -- the observant and comforting portrayal of childhood, adolescence, and (blissfuly untormented) emerging sexuality amidst the comfort of a good family is refreshing and heart-warming. The descriptions of nature, people, and New Orleans are precise and seem effortlessly well-wrought. The requisite trip to early- 1960's California is (sanely) made brief, and Grumley returns home to Iowa none the worse for wear -- and ready to take on his future. I really liked this man and the story he tells, and it breaks my heart to know that's he's gone.

Being true to yourself is almost impossible without being true to others. This is one lesson the hero of "Life Drawing" almost learns. At its heart, this book is about relationships. Mickey is looking for a place to fit in. He loses his chance with James because he is blind to the fact that his place is already secure. As the innocence of Youth drowns in possibilities, this journey of discovery stretches down to New Orleans and extends to the West Coast. The journey is a

reflection of the one we all must take and the opportunities we recognize or ignore.

This is not an easy book. It is striking and memorable. If you read it more for the immediate effect of the imagery rather than try to figure out a plot or the characters, it is much more rewarding. I'm not knowledgeable about the model of Fire Island society but that is secondary anyway. If you are looking for a real page-turner, this book is not for you. If you read slowly and visualize what the author describes, you will be amply rewarded.This book may be about life on a beach but it is not a "beach book."

This is a classic novel, and one that works on several levels. A satire of Fire Island gay culture? Yes, but it works even if you have no idea that this is what the book is supposed to be "about," as I didn't when I first read it years ago. The prose is seamlessly perfect, and the device of the amnesiac narrator, which shouldn't work, actually does.

A vanished gay culture and setting (recognizably The Pines in the 1960s) transformed into an icy fantasy, with details borrowed from the ceremonial court life of ancient Japan and Java. An amnesiac narrator finds himself in an imaginary island society, at once funny and horrific, where refined, ever-changing rules govern the slightest action. He must somehow deduce his own identity from the enigmatic offhand remarks of others around him while not giving himself away.

Though infused with a gay sensibility, this is not a "gay book". In it, obsessive aestheticism and obsessive love face each other, gradually becoming deadly enemies.

Though it's rather slow to get going in the initial chapters, Oscar Wilde's "Picture of Dorian Gray" builds up into a splendidly effective piece, written in highly polished prose. Dorian Gray, who is suggestively described as "charming" and "beautiful" ... is painted by his friend and admirer, Basil Hallward. Dorian, a self-centered social luminary whose character is reminiscent of Narcissus, makes a bizarre sub-Faustian wish which tragically comes true: that his beautiful portrait may age, while he retains his youthful looks. The conclusion is disastrous, the culmination of a narrative containing elements of murder, suicide, blackmail, a confrontation in a grimy alley and an episode in an opium den. The characters are very well sketched out, particularly the triad of Dorian, Basil and the intellectual cynic, Lord Henry, Dorian's mentor and the mouthpiece of some of Wilde's most cutting amoral opinions. The style is, typically, marvellous, characterised by brilliant exchanges and aphoristic gaiety. Wilde lacerates English bourgeois culture, the conceptions of sin and virtue and the attitudes towards art of his time with tremendous aplomb. Some of his quips are patently snide, sometimes mysogynistic, as in: "Woman represents the triumph of matter over mind, while man represents the triumph of mind over morals." Oh, isn't that just despicable?! I love it!

This sophisticated but crude novel is the story of man's eternal desire for perennial youth, of our vanity and frivolity, of the dangers of messing with the laws of life. Just like "Faust" and "The immortal" by Borges.

Dorian Gray is beautiful and irresistible. He is a socialité with a high ego and superficial thinking. When his friend Basil Hallward paints his portrait, Gray expresses his wish that he could stay forever as young and charming as the portrait. The wish comes true.

Allured by his depraved friend Henry Wotton, perhaps the best character of the book, Gray jumps into a life of utter pervertion and sin. But, every time he sins, the portrait gets older, while Gray stays young and healthy. His life turns into a maelstrom of sex, lies, murder and crime. Some day he will want to cancel the deal and be normal again. But Fate has other plans.

Wilde, a man of the world who vaguely resembles Gray, wrote this masterpiece with a great but dark sense of humor, saying every thing he has to say. It is an ironic view of vanity, of superflous desires. Gray is a man destroyed by his very beauty, to whom an unknown magical power gave the chance to contemplate in his own portrait all the vices that his looks and the world put in his hands. Love becomes carnal lust; passion becomes crime. The characters and the scenes are perfect. Wilde's wit and sarcasm come in full splendor to tell us that the world is dangerous for the soul, when its rules are not followed. But, and it's a big but, it is not a moralizing story. Wilde was not the man to do that. It is a fierce and unrepressed exposition of all the ugly side of us humans, when unchecked by nature. To be rich, beautiful and eternally young is a sure way to hell. And the writing makes it a classical novel. Come go with Wotton and Wilde to the theater, and then to an orgy. You'll wish you age peacefully.

_The Picture of Dorian Gray_, a story of morals, psychology and poetic justice, has furnished Oscar Wilde with the status of a great writer. It takes place in 19th-century England, and tells of a man in the bloom of his youth who will remain forever young.

Basil Hallward is a merely average painter until he meets Dorian Gray and becomes his friend. But Dorian, who is blessed with an angelic beauty, inspires Hallward to create his ultimate masterpiece. Awed by the perfection of this rendering, he utters the wish to be able to retain the good looks of his youth while the picture were the one to deteriorate with age. But when Dorian discovers the painting cruelly altered and realizes that his wish has been fulfilled, he ponders changing his hedonistic approach.

_Dorian Gray_'s sharp social criticism has provoked audible controversy and protest upon the book's 1890 publication, and only years later was it to rise to classic status. Reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, it is popularly interpreted as an analogy to Wilde's own tragic life. Despite this, the book is laced with the right amounts of the author's perpetual jaunty wit.

Edmund White is an excellent prose stylist. His writing is rich and evocative, and he ranks as a leading gay author. "A Boy's Own Story," however, is not a story, but rather a series of autobiographical sketches from his childhood; there is no overarching storyline, no conflict or resolution, and there are no dynamic characters. The book is nonetheless quite worth reading: it is always enjoyable, at times humorous, at times poignant. The gay (male) reader may find something of himself in the book, and other readers might enjoy a well written perspective of the gay youth in a straight world. While it may not transcend the genre of gay fiction (other than that it is not wholly fictitious), "A Boy's Own Story" is less gratuitous and better written than the average work in this genre. Though the tone of the writing is generally light, White thankfully does not avoid exploring the deeper emotional issues of the young gay American male, focusing at various times on his own insecurities regarding masculinity and self image, as well as the stereotypical tendency of gay men towards fantasy lifestyles. He manages to do this in a meaningful and constructive way without dwelling on the negative, and it is this treatment of deeper issues coupled with White's charming narrative style that make "A Boy's Own Story" worthwhile reading for all.

Edmund White's brand of prose is top-shelf. From page one of this novel, his first loosely autobiographical piece about growing up gay, I was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by him once again.

I have now read his first-person narrative trilogy in full, though out of sequence, and each book is captivating. While this, his early adolescence, is not as sexually charged as the others, it is still replete with the same auto-erotica that emanates from his fertile imagination in the subsequent pieces of the work as a whole.

The protagonist, still unnamed, draws readers into his world of summers at the lake with his well-off family; his first tentative sexual liaisons; his forays into the world of heterosexual 'normalcy', his escape from parochial school to the comforts of an all-boys private academy, and his reluctant quest to discover his homosexual self. Through the pages of this novel, the boy takes diffident steps out of the closet, even in the 1950's, when such actions were decidedly more taboo than in present day, yet White's experience can be understood by all who have come out, whether it were 1955, 1985, or 2002.

White takes his narrator, and the reader, through the highs and lows of self doubt and self awareness; through numerous quests for love and acceptance; through the dangers and disappointments of trying to conceal your true nature from the world and yourself, and finally through the daunting labors of disclosure of his homosexual tendencies to others. In the finale, the protagonist arrives, albeit in a disturbing way, at childhood's end, and forges ahead toward adulthood.

Ever present are White's frank, revealing takes on being gay. No matter what your age; no matter what the year, White's voice speaks to all. His trilogy of growing up gay in the 50's and 60's and being gay in the 70's, 80's, and beyond is among the finest examples of gay literature I have ever read.

This story is a very beautifully told literary classic. The intimate proximatey of such a well developed character is truly amazing. White tells a wonderful sotry of a gay boy growing up in the 50's--though he never truly accepts it; not until the second book of the series, anyhow.

Warnings: Many people reviewed this book negatively and I wish to use this space to share who will NOT enjoy this book. First of all, you must enjoy the "literary" style of writing; if you don't enjoy classics and works by the likes of John Irving than this is not for you. A fine example is to compare it to J.D. Salenger's "Catcher in the Rye"--if you read this in your schooling years and hated it, you'll probably hate this also. If you like a solid and clear course of plot you may not enjoy it; this book is written much like life is lived, and that is with a degree of chaos. Also, if you are homophonic, this book is obviously not for you unless you are attempting to open your mind. Finally, if you are the type of person who is offended by the unappologetic beliefs of the 50's that homosexuality is an illness, etc., then you may not want to read this; this was an issue with me, but I came to understand that this would be the thought process of someone in the narrators posision at his age and time.

I loved this book, and hope that other readers will expierience the same amazement as I did.