City Boy: My Life in New York During the 1960s and '70s

“Writing,” said Anne Freedgood, author Edmund White’s sometime editor, “is entering into a contract with the reader.” One can assume that contract includes honesty, originality, and expressiveness. White honors Freedgood’s dictum with this sweetly earnest, bracingly revealing, and rambunctious memoir of becoming a writer while living in New York City during the 60s and 70s.White loads his memoir with enormous detail – he is an extraordinary personal historian. Yet, his wry observations and self-effacing humor turns this nostalgic narrative into a juicy, fly-on-the-wall, coming-of-age writing story. New York City’s manic energy was a magnet for misfits, posers, and cultural outlaws who evolved into a merry band of creative geniuses.Another unexpected joy of White’s memoir was his ability to be in the right place at the right time. While shopping in a bookstore, he overhears a phone conversation between the bookstore owner and Jack Kerouac, who was desperate to sell an old manuscript. He drinks espresso with an “oversize girl who swore she was going to be a famous pop singer some day” (she became Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas), He was present “by chance” when the Stonewall was raided, and joined the protest against the police.Present, but on the fringes marks his early literary forays. Gradually, as his writing and contacts improve, his circle exponentially expands exposing him to the top talent of the day across the arts spectrum. Many of these people nurture both his sense of self and his writing career.White fulfilled his contract with this reader. “City Boy” is a revelatory romp through the NYC of the 60s and 70s, as well as an intimate dive into the making of a literary life.

Well, what a period piece this is! and I am not referring to the sex. Who can remember a New York (or a US, or a world) in which Susan Sontag, or Richard Howard, or any other NY Review of Books god/goddess -- was a cynosure, a diva in restaurants etc? Those days are gone. I have warmed to E White -- he plays the "wasn't I naive? wasn't i a nervous debutante? card a bit often, but if you like high-literary gossip for the 1965-1985 period, this is red meat. White is a friendly guide. Its interesting to compare this to, say, Merrill's autobiographical book, or Isherwood's diaries -- they seem so pawed-over, so distressed, so unhappy, but so "superior" in thier art -- White reads likea (slightly) dotty old uncle telling you about stuff in a generous way that recognizes that, 30 years later, you musdt amuse us because....we are not really that interested in YOU. A fine performance.

Edmund White writes with keen observations; detailed strokes of the landscape he knows so well. It is almost like gossip but not quite because it is literature after all. The characters in the book come to life with wit and accuracy. How true picture this book paints does not matter because it is truthful enough to make us believe its own truth.

Although I haven't read much of White's fiction, I've appreciated and enjoyed his nonfiction work, especially things he's written about France and French writers:  Rimbaud: The Double Life of a Rebel , The Flaneur: A Stroll Through the Paradoxes of Paris , and  Genet: A Biography  (which I never finished, but plan to do so now).CITY BOY is a frank, breezy, and not very linear memoir about White's life in New York during the late 60s through the advent of AIDS in the early 80s. This was the era of women's and gay liberation, a time when New York was still affordable and thus a magnet to young people with literary and artistic aspirations, or who just wanted to escape the moral constrictions and scrutiny of their (usually midwestern or southern) hometowns. Without overstating his importance in the New York literary world, White tells of his stuggles to get published and to earn a living as a writer. In New York this necessarily involves getting a little help from friends and frenemies, of which White had many. These included Robert Mapplethorpe, Susan Sontag, David Kalstone and many others. Some readers may crave juicier send-ups of these self-important celebrities, but I felt White's portraits were fair and balanced. I also enjoyed White's reflections on the craft of writing fiction and on how his willingness to be labeled a "gay writer" both helped and hindered his career. The book has many bitter-sweet touches of nostalgia (I especially liked his description of escaping to the Gotham Bookmark--now gone--during his lunch breaks while working for Time-Life) and is not without its moments of melancholy (many of his friends would succumb to AIDS and White lives without survivor's guilt, he speculates, only because of his own HIV positive status).Readers who liked Christopher Bram's nonfiction pieces collected in  Mapping the Territory: Selected Nonfiction , which cover the same era in New York, will likely enjoy CITY BOY.

embarrassed to admit i've never read anything of mr. white before this book, i am pleased to say i am now well into his later memoir regarding his life in paris. when i am finished, i will work my way through his novels.what a beautifully written book, filled with enviable, at times hilarious and always fascinating portraits of the "culture vulture" denizens of 60's and 70's new york. mr. white captures the decades with an sophistication that is a welcome departure from the frivolous a la anthony hayden guest style trash i've been reading regarding this era. i had to keep my wikipedia handy to continually look up the intelligentsia and the infamous, relishing every page. i loved every minute and although i'm a little late to such rarefied company as white and friends, i look forward to learning more about mr. white and this very glamorous and thrilling crowd.

Firstly I must fez up – I’m straight, not literary minded, non-drug taker and neither a New Yorker nor an American. So what’s the interest here.I read this book to find out what it was like back then in New York having arrived myself in the early eighties, and had an inkling that I was at the tail end of some serious changes (like going to a whizzo party only to be told ‘you should have been here an hour ago it was wild’). In that manner Edmund White doesn’t disappoint and to see it from the perspective of both a gay man and a struggling writer adds an extra couple of dimensions.There were aspects of New York which I never understood until now like Fire Island, where adverts were placed in the Village Voice (a very good read in those pre-internet days) for shares in a house for the season at eye watering prices – what could possibly be the attraction and who could afford it, now I know what was being sold and to who.Unfortunately White name drops incessantly. Writing a book about people you knew at the time will of course necessitate the odd name being dropped here and there. As the names were mostly literary figures from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s who had usually written a solitary ‘masterpiece’ they were often lost on me, which didn’t help. In the last quarter of the book he got carried away and pebble-dashed the reader with names to the point where if he mentioned Susan Sontag one more time I was going to scream – he did and I did.All in all White’s ability to bring you into life at the time outweighed any gripes. Even the gripes had their upside if you read the book with Google at hand. There was a sprinkling of new words for me and the history of some of the people and places were short stories in themselves.I enjoyed the book, but felt it was padded in the middle hence only 3 stars (3 ½ would be nearer the mark).

I have all of Edmund Whites books, and if like me you've read them all there is a lot of going over old ground here, characters and events from most of his greatest works..but that doesnt really take away from the overall enjoyment in reading, it actually probably enhances and builds on the earlier works through letting you get to know the real characters better. This isnt just a "gay" book, for anyone interested in New York in the 1960's/1970's its a genuinely atmospheric look at a city on the edge, the narrative is as usual well written, and its really a good read for anyone interested in human relationships in general. I would have liked some more pictures (so i didnt have to sit with a huge pile of his other books to see who he was talking about), but it was an evening well spent reading it.

O.K. it may be a little unfair to retitle this "Name Drops and Poses" , after all what do you expect from someones life story? You want to know about the interesting things that they have done and the bright and lovely people they have met. Well this is Edmund White recounting just such things from his New York period. As such it does exactly what it says on the cover. His prose remains as dense as ever and sometimes gives the feel of being a bit hard to read, overall though if you are, like me, of his generation it's an interesting read and a brief insight into some American gay history.

i admittedly struggled with some of the sections which exclusively discussed writers or artists i had never heard of but White's tales of cruising, nights at the docks and living in NYC during such a time of turmoil and change really captivated me

good book