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Chicago Tribune
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Biblioracle: Remembering the writers Frederick Forsyth and Edmund White
When a writer of note and particular importance dies, I often like to write a column of tribute exploring the writer's work and the influence it had on my life and my thinking. These are not proper obituaries, but more of a personal remembrance of a connection with someone whom I've never met but has still had some indelible effect on my life. Sadly, I could do these pieces just about every week. Though maybe this isn't sad. To be able to say that so many writers have been meaningful to you is not a horrible thing. Sometimes I consider doing a column about a particular writer but decide that my connection isn't quite sufficient to carry a full installment, and I move on. But there have been two recent deaths of writers who did very different things in their work and that I encountered at two very different times in my life who now feel strangely paired. Frederick Forsyth, one of the great political/spy thriller writers of all time, died June 9 at the age of 86. In the early '70s, Forsyth had one of the great consecutive runs of commercial fiction, releasing 'The Day of the Jackal,' 'The Odessa File,' and 'The Dogs of War' all between 1971 and 1974. These tales of Cold War intrigue often folded in real-life figures — the plot of 'The Day of the Jackal' revolves around an assassination plot of then-French president Charles de Gaulle — and read like someone tapped into a trove of top-secret files. I read these novels in the back of the car as a tween/young teen, escaping from the tedium of a family road trip into a world of daring and intrigue. What did I know about secret geopolitical machinations? Nothing, but the books were thrilling, and few have topped him when it comes to the thriller genre. Forsyth's later work was marred by an overt preoccupation with right-wing politics, but I cannot forget the first adult writer I ever read. I came to the work of Edmund White, who died on June 3 at the age of 85, via a writer who was influenced by him, Garth Greenwell. Greenwell's quasi-trilogy 'What Belongs to You,' 'Cleanness' and 'Small Rain' delivers powerful stories of gay life in contemporary America written with a frankness that breaks through what I can only describe as my own ignorance rooted in my straight, white male experience of the world. Greenwell has described White as a kind of progenitor who made his subsequent work possible, and I became curious about his progenitor. I went back to start White's own semi-autobiographical quasi-trilogy of 'A Boy's Own Story,' 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and 'The Farewell Symphony' and it was like being introduced to The Beatles after you'd first heard Nirvana. 'A Boy's Own Story' is an amazing experience as White unfolds the life of a 15-year-old narrator (at the opening) just as he comes to understand and misunderstand his homosexuality. This is the 1950s in the Midwest and the boy feels that his own deepest desires are taboo and therefore attempts to deny them. But these desires cannot be denied. Told retrospectively when the narrator has emerged into adulthood, we feel both external and internal turbulence of the narrator's life. At the same time, White also shows that his view of the world, colored by his sexuality, is a kind of superpower that reveals self-knowledge hidden from most people. I doubt I'll ever run out of writers who have something fresh to reveal to me about the world. I'm grateful to have encountered these two. John Warner is the author of books including 'More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI.' You can find him at Book recommendations from the Biblioracle John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you've read. 1. 'Hang on St. Christopher' by Adrian McKinty 2. 'The Dragon Republic' by R.F. Kuang 3. 'Not Your China Doll: The Wild and Shimmering Life of Anna May Wong' by Katie Gee Salisbury 4. 'The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth' by Zoë Schlanger 5. 'A Serial Killer's Guide to Marriage' by Asia MackayI have just the book for Rosary. The first in a series of witty, unconventional mysteries, 'Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone' by Benjamin Stevenson. 1. 'Tom Clancy: Defense Protocol' by Brian Andrews 2. 'Battle Mountain' by C.J. Box 3. 'Perfect Storm' by Paige Shelton 4. 'The Medici Return' by Steve Berry 5. 'Den of Iniquity' by J.A. JanceI'm going to lean into the thriller, though a mystery would work too: 'The Gray Man' by Mark Greaney. 1. 'Never Flinch' by Stephen King 2. 'Framed' by John Grisham and Jim McCloskey 3. 'Lost City of the Monkey God' by Douglas Preston 4. 'Rabbit Moon' by Jennifer Haigh 5. 'Middletide' by Sarah CrouchFor Sue, I'm recommending a book by one of the three authors I covered last week, 'Dare Me' by Megan Abbott. Get a reading from the Biblioracle Send a list of the last five books you've read and your hometown to biblioracle@
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
How groundbreaking gay author Edmund White paved the way for other writers
NEW YORK -- Andrew Sean Greer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, remembers the first time he read Edmund White. It was the summer of 1989, he was beginning his second year at Brown University and he had just come out. Having learned that White would be teaching at Brown, he found a copy of White's celebrated coming-of-age novel, 'A Boy's Own Story.' 'I'd never read anything like it — nobody had — and what strikes me looking back is the lack of shame or self-hatred or misery that imbued so many other gay male works of fiction of that time,' says Greer, whose 'Less' won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018. "I, of course, did not know then I was reading a truly important literary work. All I knew is I wanted to read more. 'Reading was all we had in those days — the private, unshared experience that could help you explore your private life," he said. "Ed invented so many of us." White, a pioneer of contemporary gay literature, died this week at age 85. He left behind such widely read works as 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and a gift to countless younger writers: Validation of their lives, the discovery of themselves through the stories of others. Greer and other authors speak of White's work as more than just an influence, but as a rite of passage: "How a queer man might begin to question all of the deeply held, deeply religious, deeply American assumptions about desire, love, and sex — who is entitled to have it, how it must be had, what it looks like,' says Robert Jones Jr., whose novel above love between two enslaved men, ' The Prophets,' was a National Book Award finalist in 2021. Jones remembers being a teenager in the 1980s when he read 'A Boy's Own Story." He found the book at a store in a gay neighborhood in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, 'the safest place for a person to be openly queer in New York City,' he said. 'It was a scary time for me because all the news stories about queer men revolved around AIDS and dying, and how the disease was the Christian god's vengeance against the 'sin of homosexuality,'' Jones added. 'It was the first time that I had come across any literature that confirmed that queer men have a childhood; that my own desires were not, in fact, some aberration, but were natural; and that any suffering and loneliness I was experiencing wasn't divine retribution, but was the intention of a human-made bigotry that could be, if I had the courage and the community, confronted and perhaps defeated," he said. Starting in the 1970s, White published more than 25 books, including novels, memoirs, plays, biographies and 'The Joy of Gay Sex,' a response to the 1970s bestseller 'The Joy of Sex." He held the rare stature for a living author of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle. 'White was very supportive of young writers, encouraging them to explore and expand new and individual visions,' said Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Triangle. The award was 'one way of honoring that support.' Winners such the prize was founded, in 2006, have included 'The Prophets,' Myriam Gurba 's 'Dahlia Season' and Joe Okonkwo's 'Jazz Moon.' Earlier this year, the award was given to Jiaming Tang's ' Cinema Love,' a story of gay men in rural China. Tang remembered reading 'A Boy's Own Story' in his early 20s, and said that both the book and White were 'essential touchpoints in my gay coming-of-age.' 'He writes with intimate specificity and humor, and no other writer has captured the electric excitement and crushing loneliness that gay men experience as they come of age,' Tang said. "He's a towering figure. There'd be no gay literature in America without Edmund White.'
Winnipeg Free Press
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
How groundbreaking gay author Edmund White paved the way for other writers
NEW YORK (AP) — Andrew Sean Greer, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, remembers the first time he read Edmund White. It was the summer of 1989, he was beginning his second year at Brown University and he had just come out. Having learned that White would be teaching at Brown, he found a copy of White's celebrated coming-of-age novel, 'A Boy's Own Story.' 'I'd never read anything like it — nobody had — and what strikes me looking back is the lack of shame or self-hatred or misery that imbued so many other gay male works of fiction of that time,' says Greer, whose 'Less' won the Pulitzer for fiction in 2018. 'I, of course, did not know then I was reading a truly important literary work. All I knew is I wanted to read more. 'Reading was all we had in those days — the private, unshared experience that could help you explore your private life,' he said. 'Ed invented so many of us.' White, a pioneer of contemporary gay literature, died this week at age 85. He left behind such widely read works as 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' and a gift to countless younger writers: Validation of their lives, the discovery of themselves through the stories of others. Greer and other authors speak of White's work as more than just an influence, but as a rite of passage: 'How a queer man might begin to question all of the deeply held, deeply religious, deeply American assumptions about desire, love, and sex — who is entitled to have it, how it must be had, what it looks like,' says Robert Jones Jr., whose novel above love between two enslaved men, ' The Prophets,' was a National Book Award finalist in 2021. Jones remembers being a teenager in the 1980s when he read 'A Boy's Own Story.' He found the book at a store in a gay neighborhood in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, 'the safest place for a person to be openly queer in New York City,' he said. 'It was a scary time for me because all the news stories about queer men revolved around AIDS and dying, and how the disease was the Christian god's vengeance against the 'sin of homosexuality,'' Jones added. 'It was the first time that I had come across any literature that confirmed that queer men have a childhood; that my own desires were not, in fact, some aberration, but were natural; and that any suffering and loneliness I was experiencing wasn't divine retribution, but was the intention of a human-made bigotry that could be, if I had the courage and the community, confronted and perhaps defeated,' he said. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Starting in the 1970s, White published more than 25 books, including novels, memoirs, plays, biographies and 'The Joy of Gay Sex,' a response to the 1970s bestseller 'The Joy of Sex.' He held the rare stature for a living author of having a prize named for him, the Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction, as presented by the Publishing Triangle. 'White was very supportive of young writers, encouraging them to explore and expand new and individual visions,' said Carol Rosenfeld, chair of the Triangle. The award was 'one way of honoring that support.' Winners such the prize was founded, in 2006, have included 'The Prophets,' Myriam Gurba 's 'Dahlia Season' and Joe Okonkwo's 'Jazz Moon.' Earlier this year, the award was given to Jiaming Tang's ' Cinema Love,' a story of gay men in rural China. Tang remembered reading 'A Boy's Own Story' in his early 20s, and said that both the book and White were 'essential touchpoints in my gay coming-of-age.' 'He writes with intimate specificity and humor, and no other writer has captured the electric excitement and crushing loneliness that gay men experience as they come of age,' Tang said. 'He's a towering figure. There'd be no gay literature in America without Edmund White.'
Indian Express
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
Remembering Edmund White: When he proved himself wrong
In his 2005 autobiographical book, My Lives, Edmund White recalls being shamed as an adolescent by a psychologist and family friend, writing, 'Foolishly, I had imagined I could transform the dross of homosexuality into the gold of art, but now I saw I could never be a great artist.' Starting in 1973 with Forgetting Elena, to his relief and that of a world in which he is today known as the 'the pioneer of gay literature in America', he repeatedly proved himself wrong. White, who died on Tuesday at the age of 85, belonged to a generation of 'gay writers' who were not writing for a straight readership. He came to prominence at a time when homosexuality was illegal and publishing houses would routinely get sued for pornography over a 'kiss between two men'. White's visceral writing style and autobiographical works forced readers to get up close and personal with the grief of being 'different' in a cold and cruel world. White's father was ashamed of his son's sexuality, and his mother, a psychologist, saw him, as a 'guinea pig'. From trying to 'cure himself' to becoming one of the leading voices responsible for the explosion of queer writing in the mainstream was a long journey. White's The Edmund Trilogy — a coming-of-age tale of a gay man's life from childhood to middle age — tells this story. The first in the series, A Boy's Own Story, became an instant classic. At a time when queer writers often had to work in isolation, White, along with six of his contemporaries, formed The Violet Quill — a club with 'a mixture of gay male friends, lovers and enemies' — to build a network for writers like himself. Four of the seven founders died in the AIDS epidemic. Through all this grief and love, White wrote 30 books, each bold in its own way, leaving a legacy of freedom.
Irish Examiner
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Examiner
Book review: Light touch always present in a story that is about love, pure and simple
Seán Hewitt's debut novel Open, Heaven is a queer coming-of-age novel set in a northern English village in 2002. Hewitt conveys the emotional intensity of late childhood and adolescence so well. The teeming excitement at your sexuality ascertaining itself, the uncertainty of launching yourself forward as an individual, of wondering what the shape of you might be. We first encounter James returning to the village where he grew up, considering buying an old farmhouse. As he looks around, he is brought back to a formative summer. Surely, we all have one. 'Time runs faster backwards. The years-long, arduous, and uncertain when taken by one, unspool quickly, turning liquid, so one summer becomes a shimmering light that, almost as soon as it appears in the mind is subsumed into a dark winter, a relapse of blackness that flashes to reveal a face, a fireside, a snow-encrusted garden.' This novel reminds me of Edmund White's iconic A Boy's Own Story in that both protagonists look back and explore the loneliness of queer adolescence, the feeling of being outside the swim. Yet, most of us can identify with that early grappling for identity. The wanting to be wanted. 'I could smell the heat off him, could almost taste him in my mouth. I was trapped there, part resentment, part pure pleasure, so close to him, so close to his power, that for a split second I thought perhaps he wanted me to kiss him.' Open, Heaven is a more innocent book than White's A Boy's Own Story. Sixteen-year-old James is a gentle, shy boy who loves his family, yet he often feels smothered by them. Hewitt draws the son's attempt to break away from the mother figure particularly well, his stiffening in public when she embraces him. In White's novel he viscerally charts the self-loathing of the queer boy who in the 1950s wanted to be loved by men and to love them back but not to be 'homosexual'. James in Open, Heaven does not share that fear, and there is a limited measure of societal progress. James comes out to a family who are gently supportive, although the attitude of his schoolmates remains challenging. While the self-loathing is happily absent, there is still that sense of being cut loose and alone. He is effectively ostracised because of the outside world's persistent homophobia. James must navigate his queerness in a predominantly straight world. Into his life comes gorgeous Luke, who becomes the lightning rod for his desires. Luke's sexuality remains ambiguous. James brings him a page from a porn magazine hoping that Luke might think of him as a girl. Luke is a troubled magnetic boy with an absent mother and a father in prison. Adults perceive him as a troublemaker. And so, we see two outsiders draw close. The backdrop to the book is, if not economic deprivation, quiet rural poverty and the struggle to make a living. It occurs to James that his family may not be able to afford to turn on the heating, and he faces a two-hour walk to school. The novel is not laden down by plot. I personally enjoyed the focus on the interiority of the protagonist's life. A profoundly moving bond forms between the boys. The ending had me almost reaching for a tissue because it is about love, plain and simple. This is never a dark book because the light touch is always there, and it is the better for it. How exhausting it must be for queer adolescents to so often see themselves depicted on the page as only tortured and struggling. Hewitt's debut poetry collection, Tongues of Fire, was published in 2020 to much fanfare. Since then, he has produced a book a year. He is also an assistant professor in literary practice at Trinity College Dublin and a darling of the critics. Born in England to an Irish mother and an English father, his sensibility feels midway between both cultures. Open, Heaven is written with lyrical delicacy, featuring beautiful Hardyesque descriptions of nature with an intimate tone. Hewitt is a poet at heart, and it leaps from the page. 'And then across the village, there came the high metallic notes of the church bells pealing, as if the sound, as if time itself, were being pulled upwards, brightly, into the sky.' I couldn't recommend it more.
