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A review by gerhard
Our Young Man by Edmund White
5.0
It takes a brave writer to stage a comedy setpiece in the St Vincent AIDS ward in New York in the 1980s. There are certain things that comedy seems barred from tackling: 9/11, the Holocaust, Nelson Mandela and Apartheid, HIV/AIDS. But Edmund White knows instinctively that absurdity is the flipside of tragedy, and to highlight the former accentuates the latter.
I do not think I have ever enjoyed a gay novel as much as I did White’s latest. Who would have thought that White could pull off a screwball (gay) comedy, and skewer so many sacred (gay) cows in the process? After all, this is the highly-lauded writer who gave us the sturm-und-drang of [b:The Farewell Symphony|1276941|The Farewell Symphony|Edmund White|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348244317s/1276941.jpg|16186670].
That used to be my favourite gay novel ever. Until [b:Our Young Man|25663628|Our Young Man|Edmund White|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1456093619s/25663628.jpg|45486599], that is. I honestly think that White has written a [b:Faggots|109395|Faggots|Larry Kramer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348605692s/109395.jpg|105423] for our politically-overcorrect, over-capitalised, media-saturated, surface- and image-obsessed zeitgeist.
This cautionary tale of a French fashion model who miraculously never seems to age, and who twists himself into such knots of lying and misdirection to justify his life to all the people he is involved with, is written with such sass, baudiness, humour, pathos, raunchiness, crudity and insight that the reader cannot help but fall in love.
White, himself no spring chicken, clearly writes with great experience (and feeling) about the gay community’s ongoing obsession with hedonism and youth, and the awful toll this exacts on love and life. Magnificent. I defy any reader to get past White’s devastating ending without a tear in the eye. And a smile, for all the young men we have loved and known and lost.
I do not think I have ever enjoyed a gay novel as much as I did White’s latest. Who would have thought that White could pull off a screwball (gay) comedy, and skewer so many sacred (gay) cows in the process? After all, this is the highly-lauded writer who gave us the sturm-und-drang of [b:The Farewell Symphony|1276941|The Farewell Symphony|Edmund White|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348244317s/1276941.jpg|16186670].
That used to be my favourite gay novel ever. Until [b:Our Young Man|25663628|Our Young Man|Edmund White|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1456093619s/25663628.jpg|45486599], that is. I honestly think that White has written a [b:Faggots|109395|Faggots|Larry Kramer|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348605692s/109395.jpg|105423] for our politically-overcorrect, over-capitalised, media-saturated, surface- and image-obsessed zeitgeist.
This cautionary tale of a French fashion model who miraculously never seems to age, and who twists himself into such knots of lying and misdirection to justify his life to all the people he is involved with, is written with such sass, baudiness, humour, pathos, raunchiness, crudity and insight that the reader cannot help but fall in love.
White, himself no spring chicken, clearly writes with great experience (and feeling) about the gay community’s ongoing obsession with hedonism and youth, and the awful toll this exacts on love and life. Magnificent. I defy any reader to get past White’s devastating ending without a tear in the eye. And a smile, for all the young men we have loved and known and lost.