Loves of My Life A Sex Memoir - A TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Edmund White was the author of many novels, including A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, The Farewell Symphony, A Saint from Texas, and The Humble Lover. His nonfiction included City Boy, Inside a Pearl, The Unpunished Vice, and other memoirs; The Flâneur, about Paris; and literary biographies and essays. He received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. He lived in New York.<b>Textured and variegated </b>… A writer’s memoir and a rumination on craft … White is so clearly in complete control of his powers, <b>switching between coquetry and high seriousness</b>, weaving a rich tapestry of cultural references (Jean Genet to Hello Kitty, Stendhal to Sontag) while carefully deploying his unique ability, as Alan Hollinghurst put it, to “translate libido into style” through metaphor … The book’s push against prudishness also contains <b>a subtle call for understanding and compassion</b> – reminders that what has been gained in terms of LGBTQ rights is fragile, and a conviction that a better, bolder future is possible. Anyone can make such an optimistic vision sound appealing; only Edmund White could make it <b>truly seductive</b>
- Ralf Webb, Guardian
<b>Exhaustively wonderful. </b>An <b>unflinching, romantic and generous </b>climax by a bright star in our literary constellation. <b>The gayest book ever written</b>
- Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat,
<b>Intelligent, stylish, entertaining and funny </b>
TLS
Edmund White died this year aged 85 – but the grand old man of gay literature was banging away on his keyboard (and elsewhere) right up until the end. This “sex memoir” has <b>all the no-holds-barred candour you’d expect</b> of an octogenarian who is too old to care what anyone else thinks. We learn everything – penis size, favoured positions – and meet dozens of the thousands of men he fell in love with . . . <b>A hoot, and surprisingly touching</b>
- Robbie Millen, The Times/Sunday Times Books of the Year
<b>Melancholy, erratic, wise and often ravishingly beautiful, </b>this is just what you want from a book about sex. It’s <b>as messy, risky and emotional as the act itself </b>– an old-age testament that bears witness not just to Ed’s legendary frankness, but also to his life-long commitment to finding new ways of writing who we might be, have been and are
- Neil Bartlett, author of Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall,
<b>Ecstatic, so funny, tender, very hot - a scintillating romp with a literary lion. Daddy's diary fully delivers, pungent and real, teeming with gasp-worthy disclosures, as illuminating as it is filthy.</b>
Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar
The itch of lust, in most of these encounters, soon turns into <b>swooning poetic ardour</b> . . . the writing in <i>The Loves of My Life</i> is as <b>juicy, ebullient and ecstatic</b> as in his best novels
Observer
One of the <b>patron saints of queer literature</b>, a new book from Edmund White is always a cause for celebration. <i>The Loves of My Life</i> <b>feels like the culmination of a profound wisdom</b> - <b>wry, hilarious, moving, and brilliantly unreserved</b>. This litany of lovers becomes a sort of community in itself, full of vitality and difference. White is <b>still breaking taboos in the most joyous and virtuoso style</b>
- Seán Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide,
It’s <b>trousers down from page one</b> … This <b>NSFW </b>addition to a <b>well-sexed</b> body of work does what it says on the tin
- Charles Arrowsmith, The Times
<b>Philosophical without becoming sententious </b>... White's sheer <b>overtness </b>sets the book apart ... What makes White and the stories he tells so <b>likeable </b>is his<b> indifference to the judgements of others</b>, in tandem with an <b>acerbic </b>(often merciless) appraisal of himself
- James Cahill, Spectator
Startling and at times stomach-churning … but poignant too
New Statesman
A journey through the uplit plains of lust, desire, sex, and belonging – <b>utter perfection</b> … A <b>powerful </b>reminder to take nothing for granted not even shared orgasm or the end of oppression
- Michael Cashman, author of One of Them,
White’s voice is both <b>gossipy and learned</b>, <b>salacious and sophisticated</b>, and always <b>sharply observant</b>
- Daniel Culpan, i-D Magazine
Edmund White’s <i>The Loves of My Life</i> is a <b>raw, frightening, funny and beautiful</b> testimony, <b>brimming with transgressive wisdom</b>. White asks all the right questions, forcing me to expand much of what I imagined about desire and longing
I don’t know anyone, except Edmund White, who’s had ‘thousands of sex partners.’ <b>I definitely don’t know anyone who writes so ebulliently about former lovers</b>. In his panoply of sexual encounters, Edmund White’s love of sex makes us proud to be human. And the story of his sex life <b>reads like a beautifully crafted, very moving (and very funny!) novel</b>
- John Irving, Academy Award winner,
The books by 80-year-old American novelist, memoirist and essayist Edmund White - <b>honest, fierce and joyful</b> explorations of love, sex and family - have been <b>breaking boundaries and engaging readers for nearly 50 years</b>
AARP
Nearly 50 years after the great Edmund White co-authored <i>The Joy of Gay Sex, </i>we get <b>even <i>more</i> joy, more candor, and more of White's peerless literary style</b> in a <b>witty and highly personal</b> memoir devoted to a lifelong love of sex, and of sex and love. <b>Fabulous - and inspiring! </b>
- Bill Hayes, author of Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me,
The American novelist, critic and doyen of queer literature looks back, aged 84, at his own sexual past, from furtive encounters in the 1950s Midwest to app-facilitated hookups in the 2000s
Guardian, Books to Look Forward to 2025
The kind of <b>witty, insightful</b> memoir that <b>befits a literary legacy like White’s</b>
Literary Hub, Most Anticipated Books of 2025
***A TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2025***
'All the no-holds-barred candour you'd expect . . . A hoot, and surprisingly touching' THE TIMES, BOOKS OF THE YEAR
'Trousers down from page one ... NSFW' THE TIMES
'The gayest book ever written' HENRY HOKE, author of Open Throat
'Daddy's diary fully delivers' JEREMY ATHERTON LIN, author of Gay Bar
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With his trademark wit, candour and relentlessly perceptive eye, Edmund White, the beloved 85-year-old ‘paterfamilias of queer literature’ (New York Times) delves unflinchingly into the aspect of his life which has inspired so many of his masterpieces: sex.
Documenting everything from covert fumblings in the repressed American Midwest of the 1950’s to the Arcadian gay debauchery of New York in the 1970’s; through the terror of HIV and the age of sex on the apps, White has seen – and experienced – it all.
Unyieldingly honest, outrageously raucous and arrestingly touching, The Loves of My Life can but further cement White’s unquestionable role at the apex of the gay canon.
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'A pointillistic canvas of gay desire and male sexuality' RALF WEBB, GUARDIAN
'Juicy, ebullient and ecstatic' OBSERVER
'Wry, hilarious, moving and brilliantly unreserved' SEÁN HEWITT, author of Open, Heaven