While Edmund White, America’s greatest gay writer, wasn’t the founder of contemporary gay literature, he both popularized and legitimized it. “The Guardian” called him “The Patron Saint of Gay Literature,” which seems apropos. White died on June 3 at age 85 in his Chelsea Manhattan home with Michael Carroll, his long-time husband of 30 years, at his side.
White’s long career paralleled the rise of LGBTQ rights and the progress of the movement in the U.S., or as he wrote in his “Farewell Symphony” (1997), “I thought that never had a group been placed on such a rapid cycle, oppressed in the ’50s, freed in the ’60s, exalted in the ’70s, and wiped out in the ’80s.”
He represented all these epochal events in his writing, in fiction, memoir (the sublime “City Lives”), biographies (his magisterial “[Jean]Genet: A Biography” was a 1994 Pulitzer Prize finalist), or critical essays. His output was prolific, with his last book, “The Loves of My Life,” a sex memoir, just published earlier this year to rave reviews. He literally wrote until the moment he died.
A place in history
Of course, there were gay novels before White, written by such titans as Gore Vidal, Truman Capote, and James Baldwin. But their books were written for straight readers. In the late 1970s/early 1980s, White became associated with the Violet Quill, a group of Manhattan writers whose purpose was to create and promote gay fiction written for gay readers.
The idea was to tell their own stories to help combat stereotypes and misinformation, but also to reflect the gay American experience and the new subculture emerging post-Stonewall. Fellow members included Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and four other writers who later succumbed to AIDS. With White’s and Picano’s recent passing, the sole survivor of the group is Holleran.
Unlike other gay writers (i.e. Edward Albee), White embraced being called a gay writer, but his talent was so respected, he attracted many admiring straight readers. At age 15, he wrote his first (unpublished) gay novel, really before the concept even existed, indirectly inventing a genre he later promoted and excelled.
I encountered the visiting assistant professor White as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University in the early 1980s. I took his creative writing course, ‘The Rhetoric of Fiction.’ His knowledge of fiction was encyclopedic, the equivalent of a massive Wikipedia article today. He not only had read every major book in the literary canon, but could say something intelligent and witty about each one. He commented that we read fiction not only to learn about other people’s experiences, but help us to discover what are our passions and interests, so we could develop our own unique voices.
Sex and sensibility
He was a born raconteur and could tell bawdy stories or saucy gossip about authors, which was his way of suggesting no subject was off the table when it came to the content of one’s own writing. He later taught at Brown and especially Princeton universities. He was always supportive and encouraging of younger writers, often acting as a mentor. I last saw him about a decade ago on a book tour, reintroducing myself as a former student. His first question to me was, “What are you working on, writing, now?”
By this period, he had written two abstract, experimental early novels (one about Fire Island), which some critics found intriguing and promising, but they sold poorly. He was best known as the co-author along with psychiatrist Charles Silverstein (who had actually been his therapist) of “The Joy of Gay Sex,” a gay version of the popular, bestselling 1972 heterosexual manual. The book detailed not only the sexual practices (largely written by White), but the emotional joys and pains of the gay lifestyle. A fellow student assured me, based on his own assignations with White, that he practiced what he preached, having received the best fellatio of his life from White.
The importance of this book cannot be overstated because up until its publication, there had been no in-print discussion of gay sexual practices. This book was deliciously, but tastefully explicit, but more importantly affirming. Previously any mention of homosexuality was rooted in fear, shame, and self-hatred, treating it as if it were a dirty secret. Now, being gay and sexually active was joyfully affirmed, worthy of pleasure and being loved. In addition to serving as a sexual instruction manual, there were also practical discussions of coming out, relationship advice, cruising, and how to deal with rejection.
Health and literature
A year before I took his class, he wrote a traveling memoir, “States of Desire: Travels in Gay America,” a guide to the major centers of gay life (largely metropolitan cities), revealing its enormous variety and helping readers decipher gay male subculture following Stonewall, a snapshot of carefree gay life right before the onset of AIDS.
Yet to come was his autobiographical novel, “A Boy’s Own Story,” in 1982, which covered through his fictional persona, life in the 1950s and early 1960s, as he struggled with his shame of being gay. It was a coming-of-age tale about a queer teenager, who was in therapy for years attempting to cure his homosexuality, to no effect. In the two subsequent novels in this boy series (especially “The Beautiful Room Is Empty”) the character learns to accept himself for who he is. This book is now considered a gay classic, de rigueur reading for two generations of queer adults.
Testing positive for HIV in 1985 (and fortunately for the world, a slow progressor, thus a long-term survivor), White was one of the first openly gay celebrities publicly to reveal his diagnosis so as to fight the fear and shame associated with AIDS. He was instrumental in helping found, along with the late activist Larry Kramer, The Gay Men’s Health Crisis, a New York City social service agency providing education, counsel, and more support for PWAs in the early years of the pandemic.
Some critics assert there’d be no gay literature in this country without White, but I think a more accurate assessment is that gay literature in this country wouldn’t be taken as seriously as it is now without White. He was never a bestselling author in the U.S., though he was very popular in England and France, where he was viewed as a contemporary Henry James.
Cultured and keen
But because of his brilliance, erudition, and cultured sensibility, not to mention a florid, elegant, and keenly observant prose incorporating droll, biting social commentary, critics had to take him and his subject matter seriously. Previously, when the topic of gay literature was brought up, many critics saw it as just a notch slightly above pornography.
In his last decade, a new generation of younger readers rediscovered him after being unjustly ignored. He finally received critical plaudits he long deserved, such as the 2018 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, and a 2019 National Book Award medal for lifetime achievement. He also earned the distinction of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle.
Retired Towson University English Professor, David Bergman, who wrote a book on the history of the Violet Quills (“The Violet Hour: The Violet Quill and the Making of Gay Culture”), sent this statement:
“Ed couldn’t write a dull sentence. They could be icy, but they were never dull. He had more charm when he wanted to be charming than anyone I have ever known. He could be fearless. ‘The Joy of Gay Sex’ could have meant the end of his career. When I was a graduate student at Hopkins, he made himself a presence with the gay students at a time when tenured faculty didn’t show their faces.
“In his memoir, ‘My Lives,’ he wrote with a candor even Genet would admire. For all the posh airs that he sometimes created, he was able to speak across color and class boundaries. He told me about a letter he got from a boy in Soweto, who wrote to say ‘A Boy’s Own Story’ had perfectly described his situation. Ed will be sorely missed.”
William Clark, Assistant Professor of English at San Francisco State University, said, "Edmund is significant for a few reasons, an important one being his unabashed writing about queer sexuality between men during a time when obscenity laws were often used to penalize circulation of queer-centric material.
"Edmund wrote so extensively about queer worlds, about sex, and in a way that eschewed shame and celebrated sex as a form of relational contact in ways that didn't diminish sex itself—itself a meaningful choice for the way it denaturalized stigma. Edmund also fostered literary communities, and contact between queer writers, in ways that made whole writing worlds possible. I wonder about his writing sometimes—it could veer into the fetishistic, in the way a mid-century gay white man admiring men’s body‘s often circulated desire in a way that also objectified.
"Reading him now it's hard not to think of that. At the same time, he remained groundbreaking and a steadfast mentor, vocal community member, and in being a public writer who was unabashedly himself, an important mentor for many other writers. Those things stand as important tests of time that are important to remember in these repressive times."
White was candid and explicit in his writings on gay sexuality in all its messiness and beauty. He wasn’t the least interested in making it agreeable or acceptable. For him, who we loved was crucial to who we are, our very identities. He didn’t care about respectability or what others thought. This frankness was groundbreaking in serious fiction. He essentially gave permission to other authors to write truthfully about sexuality.
In his final “Loves” book, he wrote, “I’m at an age when writers are supposed to say finally what mattered most to them—for me it would be thousands of sex partners.”
Writing was equally his passion. He once commented to an interviewer, half-jokingly, that he hired male prostitutes, primarily because it would save him time he could devote to writing. White was a master of autofiction, so writing was a kind of therapy for him. He could process not only his sexuality but the fascinating people and experiences he encountered, almost confessional in its nature, yet no apologies.
For Edmund White, writing was always about truth-telling. The broad social and cultural acceptance of queer folk achieved here in the last decade is due in no small measure to his groundbreaking work. He lived life to its creative fullest and had gads of fun along the way, sharing everything with his readers. How lucky we all were to go along for the ride.
Never miss a story! Keep up to date on the latest news, arts, politics, entertainment, and nightlife.
Sign up for the Bay Area Reporter's free weekday email newsletter. You'll receive our newsletters and special offers from our community partners.
Support California's largest LGBTQ newsroom. Your one-time, monthly, or annual contribution advocates for LGBTQ communities. Amplify a trusted voice providing news, information, and cultural coverage to all members of our community, regardless of their ability to pay. Donate today!
