The Beautiful Room Is Empty - (Vintage International) by Edmund White (Paperback)

Product Description

About the Book

Moving with sinuous ease from a claustrophobic Midwestern college town in the 1950s to Greenwich Village on the night of the Stonewall rebellion, Edmund White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel is a portrait of the artist as a young gay man finding his way within a country that has no room for sexual dissidents.

Book Synopsis

White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel is the story of a young man's coming of age in 1950s and 60s America.

"With intelligence, candor, humor--and anger--White explores the most insidious aspects of oppression.... An impressive novel."--Washington Post book World

The country has no room for a scholarly teenager with guilty but insatiable stirrings toward other men. Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising--and populated by eloquent queens, butch poseurs, and a fearfully incompetent shrink--The Beautiful Room is Empty conflates the acts of coming out and coming of age.

About the Author

Edmund White was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940. His fiction includes the autobiographical trilogy A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony, as well as Caracole, Forgetting Elena, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, and Skinned Alive, a collection of short stories. He is also the author of a highly acclaimed biography of Jean Genet, a short study of Proust, a travel book about gay America--States of Desire--and Our Paris. He is an officer of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres and teaches at Princeton University. He lives in New York City.

Product Highlights

• White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel is the story of a young man's coming of age in 1950s and 60s America.
• Lambda Literary Awards (Gay Fiction) 1988 1st Winner
• About the Author: Edmund White was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1940.
• 240 Pages
• Fiction + Literature Genres, LGBT
• Series Name: Vintage International