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A review by brnycx
A Boy's Own Story by Edmund White
4.0
"but you see, my son, homosexuality isn't just a conflict that needs to be resolved" - his voice picked up those words as thought they were nasty bits of refuse - "homosexuality is also a sin." i think he had no notion how little an effect the word sin had on me. he might just as well have said, "homosexuality is bad juju."
edmund white's (at least semi) autobiographical novel about growing up gay in 1950s america is discordant, ornate, heart-wrenching, and terribly unhappy. the style is poetic and ornate, embellished to such a degree the book feels almost porcelain, beautiful and fragile. while difficult to read in parts, the language is actually a perfect translation of the protagonist-narrator who spins it: edmund-in-the-book is vulnerable and cruel, self-loathing but driven by an inextinguishable desire to survive. he's on the cusp of some sort of self-revelation and acceptance, but - a prisoner of his time and the people within it - never quite manages to get there.
in short, kids are weird and odd and if we just let them know that they are allowed to be different and we don't expect anything else of them, we'd all be a lot happier for it.
edmund white's (at least semi) autobiographical novel about growing up gay in 1950s america is discordant, ornate, heart-wrenching, and terribly unhappy. the style is poetic and ornate, embellished to such a degree the book feels almost porcelain, beautiful and fragile. while difficult to read in parts, the language is actually a perfect translation of the protagonist-narrator who spins it: edmund-in-the-book is vulnerable and cruel, self-loathing but driven by an inextinguishable desire to survive. he's on the cusp of some sort of self-revelation and acceptance, but - a prisoner of his time and the people within it - never quite manages to get there.
in short, kids are weird and odd and if we just let them know that they are allowed to be different and we don't expect anything else of them, we'd all be a lot happier for it.