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Naomi BenaronRunning the Rift is the most recent winner of the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction, as awarded by Barbara Kingsolver. It's also an... Continue »
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A Boy's Own Story (Modern Library)

A Boy's Own Story (Modern Library) Cover

ISBN13: 9780679642541
ISBN10: 0679642544
All Product Details

 

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments:

A landmark of gay literature, A Boy's Own Story is the first of Edmund White's trilogy of autobiographical novels, which brilliantly evoke a young man's coming-of-age and document American gay life through the last forty years.

Synopsis:

For more than two decades, Edmund White has been widely recognized as America's preeminent gay writer. He has a novelist's eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase and, like Proust himself, concentrates upon the minutiae of the past so that it might live again, wrote The New York Times Book Review. White possesses the rare combination of a po-etic sense of language and an ironic sense of humor, declared Newsweek. He] is unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist. Commemorating the twentieth anni-versary of A Boy's Own Story, this Modern Library edition presents White's autobiographical novel together with an Introduction by prizewinning novelist Allan Gurganus and a new Afterword by the author himself.

A Boy's Own Story, with equal parts stunning lyricism and unabashed humor, traces a nameless narrator's coming-of-age in the 1950s. Struggling with his homosexuality, the narrator seeks the consolations of a fantastic imagination and fills his head with romantic expectations (I believed without a doubt in a better world, which was adulthood or New York or Paris or love.) His distant, divorced parents exacerbate his hunger for emotional connection, and he endures the unhelpful attentions of a priest and a psychoanalyst. In time, he recognizes the need to be loved by the men in his life and, in the surprising conclusion, escapes his childhood forever with one unforgettable act.

With A Boy's Own Story, American literature is larger by one classic novel, wrote The Washington Post Book World. No reader, straight or gay . . . can fail to experience shock after shock of recognition in these pages, and few, I would bet, will be able to withhold a one-to-one sympathy from the unnamed narrator, even when he is being, by the standards of only yesterday, 'shocking.'

About the Author

Edmund White was born in Cincinnati in 1940. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Caracole, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples and Skinned Alive, a collection of short stories. He is also the author of a highly acclaimed biography of Jean Genet, a short study of Proust, a travel book about gay America--States of Desire--and Our Paris. He is an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and teaches at Princeton University. Edmund White lives in New York City.

What Our Readers Are Saying

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Average customer rating based on 1 comment:

shoppingforstuff, February 18, 2007 (view all comments by shoppingforstuff)
Amazingly written with depth and breadth. The author's writing is so descriptive, the events and characters come alive. Throughout the sad, nostalgic, yearning novel, the reader truly connects with the protagonist and feels him. Excellent coming of age story.
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Product Details

ISBN:
9780679642541
Introduction:
Gurganus, Allan
Afterword:
White, Edmund
Author:
White, Edmund
Afterword:
White, Edmund
Author:
Gurganus, Allan
Publisher:
Random House
Location:
New York
Subject:
Gay
Subject:
Teenage boys
Subject:
Gay youth
Subject:
Bildungsromans
Edition Number:
2002
Edition Description:
Mod Lib Anniv Hardcover
Series:
Modern Library
Series Volume:
10381
Publication Date:
May 2002
Binding:
Hardcover
Language:
English
Pages:
272
Dimensions:
7.58x5.00x.86 in. .63 lbs.
A Boy's Own Story (Modern Library)
0 stars - 0 reviews
$ In Stock
Product details 272 pages Modern Library - English 9780679642541 Reviews:
"Synopsis" by , For more than two decades, Edmund White has been widely recognized as America's preeminent gay writer. He has a novelist's eye for the telling detail or the remarkable phrase and, like Proust himself, concentrates upon the minutiae of the past so that it might live again, wrote The New York Times Book Review. White possesses the rare combination of a po-etic sense of language and an ironic sense of humor, declared Newsweek. He] is unquestionably the foremost American gay novelist. Commemorating the twentieth anni-versary of A Boy's Own Story, this Modern Library edition presents White's autobiographical novel together with an Introduction by prizewinning novelist Allan Gurganus and a new Afterword by the author himself.

A Boy's Own Story, with equal parts stunning lyricism and unabashed humor, traces a nameless narrator's coming-of-age in the 1950s. Struggling with his homosexuality, the narrator seeks the consolations of a fantastic imagination and fills his head with romantic expectations (I believed without a doubt in a better world, which was adulthood or New York or Paris or love.) His distant, divorced parents exacerbate his hunger for emotional connection, and he endures the unhelpful attentions of a priest and a psychoanalyst. In time, he recognizes the need to be loved by the men in his life and, in the surprising conclusion, escapes his childhood forever with one unforgettable act.

With A Boy's Own Story, American literature is larger by one classic novel, wrote The Washington Post Book World. No reader, straight or gay . . . can fail to experience shock after shock of recognition in these pages, and few, I would bet, will be able to withhold a one-to-one sympathy from the unnamed narrator, even when he is being, by the standards of only yesterday, 'shocking.'

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