Customer Reviews

City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

In Edmund White's latest book he fleshes out-- no pun intended-- material he has covered previously in MY LIVES, the time he spent in New York in the 1960's and 70's. It was the time that Brad Gooch has labeled "the golden age of promiscuity" in his novel by the same name and that Susan Sontag-- one of the people White writes extensively about-- describes as the only time in human history when people "were free to have sex when and how they wanted," because of access to birth control pills and before the advent of AIDS. Sontag wrote a recommendation for White's groundbreaking novel A BOY'S OWN STORY but asked that her blurb be removed from editions that appeared after she severed her friendship with him because he modeled a character on her in his novel CARACOLE, the only White novel that I have never been able to read. Besides Sontag, he writes about dozens of people he knew during this period: Robert Mapplethorpe, who used the N word; William Burroughs, whom White deliciously describes as having "the look of an unsuccessful Kansas Undertaker"; Jasper Johns; Thom Gunn; Lillian Hellman; John Ashberry; James Merrill et al. Never having met any of these people-- getting Mapplethorpe to sign a book doesn't count-- I have no idea whether or not White's descriptions of these individuals are accurate nor not. He certainly convinces you, however, that they are. Since White is now as famous as many of the people he discusses, he can hardly be called a name-dropper, a word, as he tells us, that does not exist in the French language.

White also chronicles his days at Time-Life as well as other dull jobs and of course his nights of sex as well: "We tried to trick every night, if we could do it efficiently, but we reserved the weekends for our serious hunting sorties." He certainly is not shy about what he calls his self-hatred and low self-esteem and wonders about his "impulses toward treachery, especially toward people who's helped me and befriended me. A BOY'S OWN STORY ends with the boy (me) betraying his teacher, a man with whom he had sex."

White writes beautifully-- as he always does on any subject-- about lovers versus friends with friendship the winner: "I always placed a high value on friendship, but even I had no way of guessing back then that it was more fun to get drunk with a friend than with a lover. Love is a source of anxiety until it is a source of boredom; only friendship feeds the spirit." In the 1970's the New Yorkers White knew separated love, friendship and sex. "The division of labor gave the starring role to friendship."

In the closing pages of CITY BOY White discusses the advent of AIDS, his being the first president of GMHC and Larry Kramer's founding of ACT UP-- "We were naive, but there was no way to be sophisticated about an unprecedented plague"-- and says simply that AIDS killed most of his circle, a statement that many of us far away from New York understand all too well. I cannot call up my best and oldest friend for many years and tell him to read Edmund White's latest book since he died in the first wave of AIDS-related deaths while the President of the United States remained silent.

White's new memoir is extremely engaging, funny and entertaining. It contains a wealth of gem-like anecdotes. White encountered many of NYC's most important cultural and literary figures of the 60s and 70s period that he writes about. From Lillian Hellman to Harold Brodkey to Susan Sontag we are given his personal insights to what these vivacious personalities were actually like. I'll never be able to think of Peggy Guggenheim in the same way again after reading White's portrait of her. But in addition to writing about his many successes and exciting encounters during this time, the author also details the professional hardship of being a new writer in a city swarming with aspiring artists and the many failures he had to endure before finding success.

White also gives an interesting analysis of the evolving attitudes about homosexuality. He considers how gay people saw themselves in the 60s and 70s in relation to now. He also creates an incredibly dynamic account of NYC itself. He shows how it changed from a dilapidated hobbling metropolis to the booming cash rich centre and tourist destination that it'd become in the 80s. City Boy is an important chronicle of a certain period of time, but it is also a wickedly enjoyable read. Once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down until finishing the last page.

In Alan Bennett's play The History Boys, when the dimmest of the students is asked to define history, he replies, "It's just one [expletive] thing after another." Reductive? Perhaps. Funny? Certainly. But also, quite true.

And it happens to be the reason I tend to avoid non-fiction...memoirs in particular. At least when one is writing a biography (particularly about someone who is already dead) or writing about history, the author has enough distance to give the story some shape and ascribe it some sort of meaning.

Autobiography is a bit stickier.

I chose to read White's City Boy primarily because of its subtitle, "My Life in New York During the 1960's and 70's." As a music fan, that era in NYC history has always interested me. Even though the seedy, filthy, dangerous New York of the 1970's has all but been forgotten, it was fertile ground for many of the most influential artists, filmmakers, writers and musicians of the latter part of the Twentieth Century. Over the years, books like Edie and Please Kill Me (both of which consist of edited and skillfully arranged interviews) have fed my interest in this period. I figured if anyone could conjur that time period on the page, it would surely be a skillful and evocative writer like White.

Unfortunately I found the book to be dull and almost completely formless. He flits from one episode to another, tepidly dishing the dirt on a lot of hotsy totsy (and mostly dead) literary luminaries, only about half of whom I've heard of. While he does spill a fair amount of ink on the squalid living conditions in pre-boom Manhattan, the descriptions are all fairly dry and cliche (garbage piling in the streets due to strikes, multiple locks on apartment doors) and lack any real flavour of the era. Surprisingly, the rampant sex of that time period is somewhat coyly presented and, in retrospect, primarily only as a set up for the sea change occasioned by the looming AIDS crisis that comes near the book's conclusion.

The most engaging aspect of the story dealt with the writing of his first novel, Forgetting Elena and his subsequent struggle to get it edited, published, reviewed and recognized. That novel has always been a favourite of mine and, as a writer, the story of how a debut novel goes from idea to publication, was edifying and fascinating. But that, in and of itself, is not enough for me to wholeheartedly recommend White's book.

For a more lively, colourful version of this period in NY history (with a gay perspective), one should really read Wayne County's outrageous memoir, Man Enough to be a Woman.

I have never been much of a fan of Edmund White's fiction. In my view, too self consciously arty, too vague and nebulous. But his non-fiction is another matter. And this latest memoir is really White at his best. The prose flows as he describes his life in the 60s and 70s in New York, then the center of artistic endeavor in the US. Unlike his novels, here his narrative hangs together beautifully and compels his story forward.

Edmund White is a talented writer of fiction, but not biographies or autobiographies. This tale of his life does not resonate on paper. Although he provides snippets of his interactions with friends and celebrities, there is nothing to draw us in. It was a chore to read. With each page that I turned, I hoped that it would get better, but it never got there. This is great to read in bed, because it will put you to sleep.

I received this book in November and tried to read it then but couldn't get through it. I picked it up twice more before finally finishing it, and after all that effort to read the book I'm a little disappointed.

White spins an engaging story, mixing comic anecdotes with serious reflection on himself and his peers at a time of great change in their lives - but I just wasn't interested. An excessive amount of name dropping turned me off from the very beginning, and the rest of the book did little to change my impressions. I think White has a lot of interesting things to say, and overall is an insightful and talented writer - clearly, since he overcame the early writers' block he describes in the book to publish 23 books - but his prose here was clumsy, often repetitive and even gossipy in tone. I thought I would like that casual, 'have I got a story for you' feel - instead it made the book a difficult one for me to finish.

I understand that White's life and writing have been vastly impacted by the time and place in which his adult life began - there were times, however, many times throughout the book, where entire paragraphs read like a roster of the literary and cultural icons of his time. Good for him, for meeting and observing all of those people. But was that all he had to write about?"

Intelligent, an excellent writer, well-connected, opinionated, and often guilty of the same transgressions of which he accuses Richard Howard of having committed, Edmund White's City Boy will most likely only appeal to a limited audience, gay or straight, which is unfortunate given his writing skills.

It did not take me long to realize why I prefer biographies to autobiographies. Biographers are more successful at culling the essence of their characters. Like many politicians who publish, it feels as Mr. White is trying to hard to sell himself and it is not clear to whom, unlike politicians who want your vote but like politicians in wanting you to know of their importance. When he describes Italians in Rome or life in New York City in the 70's, his writing is visual and fascinating. When he writes about the famous or infamous who are or have been a part of his life, even if only fleetingly, it seems as though he is trying to sell his importance. Instead of writing in some detail about how these relationships have affected him developmentally, although there are some exceptions, it often reads like a Who's Who. If one knows these people or cares about them, then his book will have appeal. Only knowing something about a few of the people, and finding that many of them not being ones that I would want to know, this book is less captivating. At the conclusion of City Boy, I did not find myself particularly caring about Edmund White other than to say that he is a good writer, and maybe that is what he wanted his audience to know.

The last year has found me fascinated by the New York of the 60's and 70's. I have read a number of novels and memoirs of this
era and found once again that it is easy to get caught up in an era I was born too late to experience first hand.
After I read this book, in 2 sittings, I found myself wondering how on earth anyone could make this era of history sound
so utterly boring and dry.

I am not surprised, actually. I have read a number of White's books and have always found them sterile and emotionless.
More than anything, I find his writing to remind me of the worst kind of journalism. There is no investment in the material.
Why did he love the men in this book? I have no idea. Why were these people his friends? No clue. With one or two exceptions,
I found every recounting of his memories to be distant, removed and told with an odd formality. There is plenty of energy
expended here to weave arcane literary references into the stories and descriptions. I was frequently reminded of his
knowledge of French and Italian by the dropping of phrases he gleaned from his experiences abroad. Sadly, such efforts just
cluttered the loose narrative and served only to remind me that the man has read a lot and traveled extensively. So what?
It is the least interesting thing about him. Where he has been and what he has read is incidental. After reading this
book, I have no lasting impressions about what it felt like to be in one of the most exciting places on earth during one
of the most fertile artistic and cultural times in recent history.

There is no soul in this book. No guts. No heart. I think it has finally broken me of reading his books.

I was far more moved and educated by Patti Smith's recounting of the era, Just Kids. I felt like I had devoured a gourmet
feast after I read it. City Boy made me feel like I had stared at a grainy photo of food in a long ago discarded magazine.

If Edmund White had been a completely different person, he might have enlisted in the military in the 1960's and built a career as a soldier, even as he suspected the true cost of war. Over forty years later, he could have written a memoir about his career, emanating from almost a type of post traumatic stress.

"City Boy" struck me as this type of dispatch, although White's battles were fought as he struggled to develop a literary career in New York during the 1960's and '70's.

After graduating from the University of Michigan with a degree in Chinese, White was accepted into a Ph.D. program at Harvard. However, he chose to follow a boyfriend to New York, arriving in 1962. With no contacts in the literary world, White took a boring job at Time-Life Books which he later abandoned to take an extended trip to Rome. While he seemed to have little momentum, White writes, "I was obsessed with being famous--not rich, which held no interest for me, but famous among the top echelons of the cultural elite."

Reading about his life in the 1960's, I would not have bet on White achieving that goal. His first novel, "Forgetting Elena," was published in 1973, and his "breakthrough" novel, "A Boy's Own Story," was not published until 1982. White lived a bohemian existence, surviving on freelance work, developed friends and contacts in literary and cultural circles, and pursued his rapacious sexual appetites in the gay underground. This book contains fascinating accounts of time spent with luminaries such as James Merrill, Truman Capote, Robert Mapplethorpe, Susan Sontag, and others. What casts a pall over these stories, however, is how bizarre and unhappy so many of these icons seemed to be as they struggled to maintain careers in a city that runs white-hot with ambition. When you add White's poverty, his struggles to live as an openly gay man, and the death of legions of friends to AIDS, the account resembles a battlefield strewn with collateral damage.

The most hopeful note in this miasma is White's testament to friendship. He would wrap sexual trysts and lovers in disposable paper, while making presents of friends. You get the sense that the friendships were what enabled him to persevere in the midst of so much bleakness.

White has written numerous well-received works of fiction, nonfiction, and memoir and teaches writing at Princeton, so it could be said that he has realized many of his ambitions. The value in this memoir is in telling us the true price of this achievement.

I just finished City Boy by Edmund White and I loved it.

I was reading Patti Smith's Just Kids and White's book concurrently
(two hardcover books at once - a rarity for someone who prides himself
on a subscription to Vanity Fair ) and found that they offered views of a similar place
and time - yet from very different perspectives. While City Boy portrays the literary side of
1960's /70's New York in depth, it is White's description of that now lost, pre-1981 NYC gay
underworld that will resonate with readers of a certain generation who are fortunate to be alive
today while having experienced it all first-hand.