A Boy's Own Story (Modern Library) [Hardcover]

Edmund White (Author, Afterword), Allan Gurganus (Introduction)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0679642544 | ISBN-13: 978-0679642541 | Publication Date: May 7, 2002

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.’”

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The subject of this book might be that brief eloquence between the fantasies of a dream-bound child and his implementing those through charm, sexuality, his wits. . . . This work of principled sweep and great observational power also champions the centrality of Art as a governing quest. It offers this view with a faith that must recall Proust’s life project, his attempt to hold all of time, its characters at synchronous ages, all its warring textures, in one head, one work.” —from the Introduction by Allan Gurganus

From the Inside Flap

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.??

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Modern Library (May 7, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679642544
• ISBN-13: 978-0679642541
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #877,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully told literary classic., December 29, 1999

By 

Anon - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Boy's Own Story: Revised Edition (Paperback)

This story is a very beautifully told literary classic. The intimate proximatey of such a well developed character is truly amazing. White tells a wonderful sotry of a gay boy growing up in the 50's--though he never truly accepts it; not until the second book of the series, anyhow.

Warnings: Many people reviewed this book negatively and I wish to use this space to share who will NOT enjoy this book. First of all, you must enjoy the "literary" style of writing; if you don't enjoy classics and works by the likes of John Irving than this is not for you. A fine example is to compare it to J.D. Salenger's "Catcher in the Rye"--if you read this in your schooling years and hated it, you'll probably hate this also. If you like a solid and clear course of plot you may not enjoy it; this book is written much like life is lived, and that is with a degree of chaos. Also, if you are homophonic, this book is obviously not for you unless you are attempting to open your mind. Finally, if you are the type of person who is offended by the unappologetic beliefs of the 50's that homosexuality is an illness, etc., then you may not want to read this; this was an issue with me, but I came to understand that this would be the thought process of someone in the narrators posision at his age and time.

I loved this book, and hope that other readers will expierience the same amazement as I did.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enduring masterwork, December 6, 2000

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Boy's Own Story (Paperback)

Edmund White is one of America's finest writers. From his early forays into a then edgey genre of stories that happen to include in depth studies of gay men and their questionable place in the public fabric to his current biographies of famous writers (Proust, et al) to his assessment in literary form of the AIDS crisis and it effect on life in all of America, White has become ever more erudite, polished in technique, and fascinating to explore. Because of this current prominence among gifted writers it is rewarding to return to the early works and see if they contained all the seeds of his success. Having just re-read "A Boy's Own Story" I am even more deeply moved and impressed with White than I remembered. This treasureable book is not just a Pink Triangle groupie read. This is wondrously beautiful writing by all standards. White knows how to make the English linguage sing with acute observations that begin with a keen delineation of line but then blossom fully into metaphors than can only be called poems. These descriptions apply not only to walks in nature or observed qualities of light at varying times of day, but they are used to define his characters in such a vivid manner that they literally step off the page, indelibly.

And the story.....this tale of the grappling of a youth over questions not only of sexuality but of coming of age in social, religious, educational, dream vs reality strikes chords in all of us. His unnamed narrator is in a way the Everyman of Youth. White does not go for the happy Hollywood ending: he writes about the truths of decisions gone awry, dreams dismemebered, realites coming into being. I would hope that "A Boy's Own Story" would be part of the required reading list for the liberal arts schools who care about not only quality of literature but also of complexity of becoming an adult.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In the beginning...., October 21, 2002

By 

B. Morse (Boston, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A Boy's Own Story (Modern Library) (Hardcover)

Edmund White's brand of prose is top-shelf. From page one of this novel, his first loosely autobiographical piece about growing up gay, I was bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by him once again.

I have now read his first-person narrative trilogy in full, though out of sequence, and each book is captivating. While this, his early adolescence, is not as sexually charged as the others, it is still replete with the same auto-erotica that emanates from his fertile imagination in the subsequent pieces of the work as a whole.

The protagonist, still unnamed, draws readers into his world of summers at the lake with his well-off family; his first tentative sexual liaisons; his forays into the world of heterosexual 'normalcy', his escape from parochial school to the comforts of an all-boys private academy, and his reluctant quest to discover his homosexual self. Through the pages of this novel, the boy takes diffident steps out of the closet, even in the 1950's, when such actions were decidedly more taboo than in present day, yet White's experience can be understood by all who have come out, whether it were 1955, 1985, or 2002.

White takes his narrator, and the reader, through the highs and lows of self doubt and self awareness; through numerous quests for love and acceptance; through the dangers and disappointments of trying to conceal your true nature from the world and yourself, and finally through the daunting labors of disclosure of his homosexual tendencies to others. In the finale, the protagonist arrives, albeit in a disturbing way, at childhood's end, and forges ahead toward adulthood.

Ever present are White's frank, revealing takes on being gay. No matter what your age; no matter what the year, White's voice speaks to all. His trilogy of growing up gay in the 50's and 60's and being gay in the 70's, 80's, and beyond is among the finest examples of gay literature I have ever read.