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A review by jackieeh
City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and 1970s by Edmund White
3.0
Oh Edmund, Edmund, Edmund.
What I like is writers writing about when they couldn't write.
I mean, come on, this stuff is ten times more useful than all that make-a-schedule-get-plenty-of-sleep-don't-force-it advice. And, as in Isherwood, there are those friends who tell it like it is:
I haven't mentioned the name-dropping or the sex-having because obviously that happens, and happens a lot. It's fun to read about, but after a while all the proper nouns made my eyes glaze over a little bit. Sometimes (sometimes!) White admits when he's mistaken about something or someone. Other times...not so much. And I wouldn't have him any other way.
A good line, possibly the best line, that has nothing to do with writing or gossip:
You tell 'em.
Can't wait to read about his adventures in Paris. That might just break the four star barrier.
But my sense of personal identity required that I write fiction.
What I like is writers writing about when they couldn't write.
In switching back to realism I'd somehow lost my ability to write.
I mean, come on, this stuff is ten times more useful than all that make-a-schedule-get-plenty-of-sleep-don't-force-it advice. And, as in Isherwood, there are those friends who tell it like it is:
I felt that in choosing literature as a career I'd placed all my money on a single number and it had lost.
When I made this melodramatic declaration to a friend, he said, "What else were you planning to do with your life? Be an accountant? Civil engineer?"
I haven't mentioned the name-dropping or the sex-having because obviously that happens, and happens a lot. It's fun to read about, but after a while all the proper nouns made my eyes glaze over a little bit. Sometimes (sometimes!) White admits when he's mistaken about something or someone. Other times...not so much. And I wouldn't have him any other way.
A good line, possibly the best line, that has nothing to do with writing or gossip:
The idea that we'd erred somehow in not foreseeing an unprecedented disease no scientist in the world had predicted strikes me as bizarre and unfair.
You tell 'em.
Can't wait to read about his adventures in Paris. That might just break the four star barrier.