Skinned Alive: Stories [Paperback]

Edmund White (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 4, 1995

The eight stories in this erotic and heartbreaking collection are barometers of difference. They measure the distance between an American expatriate and the Frenchman who tutors him in table manners and rough sex; the gulf between a man dying of AIDS and his uncomprehending relatives.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first collection of eight of his stories is also White's first fiction in eight years. Their quality varies. Best are the three autobiographical pieces written in the first person, including the title story about a middle-aged HIV-positive American writer living in Paris, and "The Reprise," about a youthful dalliance and a middle-aged reconnection. Both recall the brilliance of White's autobiographical novels, A Boy's Own Story and The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and highlight his razor-sharp wit, his careful attention to details of both scene and personality. Yet the whole collection marks a significant change in White's traditionally rococo prose. The style is more restrained throughout (as the writer/narrator of the title story remarks: "Speaking French so long had made me simplify my thoughts?whether expressed in French or English"). This works well in the best stories, accounting for half the book's length, but lends a didacticism to those tales narrated in the third person, in which White's expository prose largely contradicts the fiction writer's mantra to show, not tell. Even the weakest narratives are distinguished by sparkling writing ("Danny's eyes looked like old costume jewelry in which the gold backing is flaking off"; "Lovers are attracted by opposites and then struggle to turn them into twins"), but complete satisfaction is to be found elsewhere than in this volume.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

White is a noted novelist (A Boy's Own Life, LJ 9/1/92), essayist (The Burning Library, LJ 10/1/94), and biographer, whose Genet (LJ 9/15/93) was one of LJ's Best Books of 1993. here he offers eight deeply personal stories.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 254 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; First Edition edition (July 4, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679434763
• ISBN-13: 978-0679434764
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,050,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rediscovering treasures, April 11, 2001

By 

Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Skinned Alive: Stories (Paperback)

Edmund White's published output seems to grow yearly. This multi-talented writer has added scholarly biographies, shared research, and new novels to his resume since publishing this book of short stories SKINNED ALIVE in 1995. And it is because of this expansion of his scope of writing that it is refreshing to make this mini-retrospective excursion into White's gifts.

Some will argue that his stories are too self centered, that his Francophilia gets in the way visually and textually. The stories is this collection are not at all limited to his expatriate status - our own American In Paris. The spectrum described by his characters is much more than that. White is not afraid to mix his own history with that of his characters and in doing so he validates what might otherwise seem like far-fetched tales. "My Oracle" is a simple story about an aging HIV exposed man taking a trip to Crete and how he rediscovers passion and being alive - a state all but discarded by his ruminating on the terminal drought of his experiences at home. Here is a buffed middle aged male longing for resurrection and he finds it in the simplest way. His other stories ask us to glimpse mortality and vanity and make some sense of it. White has some difficulty ending a short story; we're left with a feeling of lack of resolution. But maybe that is part of this superb writer's talent. "You, dear reader, finish the thought". This is a collection that deserves revisiting on a regular basis, when life changes rise in your path.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stories of great joy, August 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Skinned Alive: Stories (Paperback)

I don't feel that these stories are riddled with "pertention" like others have said. As a matter of fact, it is the frankness of White's writing that gives his characters the ability to be both relatable and divine. His descriptions of Greece and Texas create a world so striking in your mind that you want to give him the Oscar for Best Cinamatography despite the fact that this is a book and not a movie.
Amazing stories about life, love, and rejection from both. If you have read one of his novels (which you should do first) and enjoyed them then you will be able to read these with great pleasure.

7 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A little pretention goes a long ways, February 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Skinned Alive: Stories (Paperback)

This is my first book by Edmund White and probably my last. His stories are marginally entertaining & I suppose the they succeed on some level, but they so strewn with French phrases that can only be known by a French speaker or a Francophile that one begins to wonder who Edmund is trying to impress? The same goes for his conquests, always trying to impress with his prowess and his internationalism. In short, if you can stomach pretention at a party you may be able to stomach this. I can't, there are too many good things to read.