Edmund White, Author of 'A Boy's Own Story' and 'The Joy of Gay Sex', Dies at 85

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2 days ago

Writer Edmund White has died at age 85
The author was widely regarded as a pioneering figure of LGBTQ+ literature, and published over 30 books throughout his career
Some of White's most notable works included the semi-autobiographical novel A Boy's Own Story and the nonfiction book The Joy of Gay SexEdmund White, the pioneering author who documented the gay experience through acclaimed works of fiction and nonfiction, has died. He was 85.The writer's death on June 3 was confirmed by his husband, Michael Carroll, and agent Bill Clegg, The New York Times, The Guardian and NBC News report. White collapsed while waiting for an ambulance after experiencing stomach illness symptoms, though an official cause of death has not yet been released. White was born on Jan. 13, 1940 in Cincinnati. His parents divorced when he was a child, and White moved around the country with his mother, Delilah, and sister, Margaret. White came out to his mother when he was a teenager, and was sent to a psychiatrist.
"As a young teenager I looked desperately for things to read that might excite me or assure me I wasn't the only one, that might confirm my identity I was unhappily piecing together," the author wrote in his 1991 essay 'Out of the Closet, On to the Bookshelf.'
Though he was accepted to Harvard for college, White decided to attend the University of Michigan, in order to stay closer to his therapist. He majored in Chinese before he moved to New York in 1962, where he worked at Time-Life Books. White became immersed in the city's LGBTQ+ scene, and recounted seeing the Stonewall Riots.After leaving the city to live in Rome and work as an editor for The Saturday Review in San Francisco, White returned to New York in 1973.
'I was writing all the time and I was considered a good journalist but I had no idea if I could write a novel,' White told The Paris Review in 1988. 'Part of my problem as a young writer was that I was too much a New Yorker, always second-guessing the 'market.' I became so discouraged that I decided to write something that would please me alone — that became my sole criterion.'
White published his debut novel, Forgetting Elena, in 1973. Over the course of his career, White wrote more than 30 books. One of his most notable works was the 1982 semi-autobiographical novel A Boy's Own Story, now seen as a cornerstone of LGBTQ+ literature. The novel was also the first in trilogy, later followed by The Beautiful Room is Empty (1988) and The Farewell Symphony (1997).White's nonfiction also included the 1977 book The Joy of Gay Sex, which he cowrote with his therapist Charles Silverstein. Inspired by Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex, White's book served as both a manual and a narrative about life in the gay community. His other nonfiction books included States of Desire: Travels in Gay America (1980), City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s (2009) and The Loves of My Life: A Sex Memoir, published in January 2025.
White also authored several biographies of notable French writers, including Arthur Rimbaud, Marcel Proust and Jean Genet (Genet: A Biography was a finalist for the 1994 Pulitzer Prize). The author also documented his time living in France in the 2014 memoir Inside a Pearl: My Years in Paris.White taught creative writing at Brown University and Princeton University. In 2019, he received the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.'It's never a day job; it's always a tremendous challenge,' White said of his work in a 2012 interview with the Los Angeles Review of Books. 'People always ask me, 'Do you ever start a book and then put it aside and do something different?' And, unfortunately, no, I always write everything right to the bitter end."
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