Edmund White
Edmund White
Edmund Valentine White IIIis an American novelist, memoirist, and an essayist on literary and social topics. Much of his writing is on the theme of same-sex love. Probably his best-known books are The Joy of Gay Sexand his trio of autobiographic novels, A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Emptyand The Farewell Symphony...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth13 January 1940
CountryUnited States of America
comment public shows states writers
The talk shows in the States want celebrities, not authors. In France, it is different; writers are called upon to comment on everything. They have a very public role there.
characters fables writers
Some writers are so enthralled by ideas (one thinks of Doris Lessing) that their characters become debaters, and their fables approach allegory.
alison embodies possibilities seamless seem thoroughly writer
I can think of no other writer who so thoroughly embodies the Jamesian spirit as Alison Lurie. Like him she can excavate all the possibilities of a theme. Like his, her books seem long, unbroken threads, seamless progressions of effects.
tend worse writers
Most writers tend to get worse rather than better. I'm determined to be one that gets better.
few history imagine notion rapidly readership reason since suit within writers
Few writers in history have ever been 'politically correct' (a notion that rapidly changes in any case), and there's no reason to imagine that gay writers will ever suit their readers, especially since that readership is splintered into ghettos within ghettos.
bad beauty effect interested name terribly truth writer
My mother was terribly invasive, all in the name of psychiatric honesty. It was a bad thing in some ways, but I do think it had the effect of making me interested in 'the truth' as a writer - more than beauty, more than having a shapely story.
few france french good high mentioned mine mocking relatives review ring writer wrote york
The French are pretty thin-skinned. The few times I mentioned a French writer in 'City Boy,' the relatives would ring up in high dudgeon. I once wrote a mocking review of Marguerite Duras in the 'New York Review of Books,' and good friends of mine in France got very angry.
almost critics early negative positive pressure readers role seen supposed
Early on, after gay liberation, there was an almost Stalinist pressure from gay critics and even gay readers to write about positive role models. We were never supposed to write negative things about gays, or else we were seen as collaborating with the enemy.
candidates ceos christ conversation europeans jesus ladies people personal
Europeans forget that one-third of the American people have had a personal conversation with Jesus Christ and that the born-again are not just little old ladies in black but also CEOs and provosts of universities and candidates for office.
africa christian fight gay gays good marriage opposed realized seemed tyrannical wanting
First, I was opposed to gay marriage because it seemed like one more way that gays were wanting to assimilate. When I realized the Christian right was so opposed to it, as well as tyrannical governments in Africa and Russia, I thought, 'It must be a good thing to fight for.'
american-novelist book certain hum instant snapped stop
There was a certain hum that would be generated by the book when I was writing well; I'd stop working the instant that hum snapped off.
careful complete faults himself journals novel pages several thousand
Reading the several thousand pages of Christopher Isherwood's complete journals is an instructive corrective to the prissiness of reading fiction. Isherwood had faults that we'd say were unforgiveable in a novel (he was careful to distance himself from these in his autobiographical fiction).
apply bad beings exacting fall fictional habit life novels overly possibly readers standards
Readers of novels often fall into the bad habit of being overly exacting about the characters' moral flaws. They apply to these fictional beings standards that no one they know in real life could possibly meet.
gays marriage opposed originally resemble straight targeted
Originally I was opposed to gay assimilation and targeted gay marriage as just another effort on the part of gays to resemble their straight neighbours.