Original Youth

Edmund White's boyhood remains of enduring interest far beyond the bounds of the individual and the icon. As an intense playing out of the many themes of gay youth it is almost unparalleled. Forced from the age of three to be the best friend and 'advisor' of his unhinged, divorced mother; fearful of his imperious father yet also sexually attracted to him, White evolved into a teenager who was at once a Buddhist, a cruiser of hustlers and married men, an A student, an FBI drug informer, a writer and a wily seducer of classmates. A truly rich portrait.