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The Edmund Trilogy #2
The Beautiful Room Is Empty
When the narrator of White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel first embarks on his sexual odyssey, it is the 1950s, and America is "a big gray country of families on drowsy holiday." That 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.
241 pages, Paperback
First published March 12, 1988
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5242 people want to read
About the author
Edmund White
140 books928 followersEdmund Valentine White III was an American novelist, memoirist, playwright, biographer, and essayist. He was the recipient of Lambda Literary's Visionary Award, the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award, and the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993.
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
White was known as a groundbreaking writer of gay literature and a major influence on gay American literature and has been called "the first major queer novelist to champion a new generation of writers."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 281 reviews
April 4, 2019
An astonishing writer. I love his metaphors:
“Every day he looked thinner, older, more fragile, almost like someone recently dead who appears in our dreams, unshaved and reproachful.”
“In the hollow of her neck there was a smudge of red paint, just where a grandmother in a play might have worn a cameo on a black ribbon.”
”The sitter was posing as though his profile was about to go on the coin of the realm.”
“Outside, saltimbanques of snow were leaping up and flipping backwards.”
The story is set unpromisingly in a 1950s midwest America. The narrator at its start is 17. He attends Eton boarding school. No, not the real Eton but a fake Eton which is just across the street from an arts academy somewhere in the midwest. The two young populations rarely mingle, but our narrator, bored to death, has decided to be different and make the crossing. He meets Maria, an artist, with whom he’d rather fall in love than be gay. For at the time “The three most heinous crimes known to man were Communism, heroin, and homosexuality.”
The nearby filthy metropolis to which they abscond is Detroit. The law student William Everett Hunton has to be experienced on the page to be believed; he is a cock-crazy maniac, who prefers them short but “beercan thick.” Then there’s Tex the bookseller and Mason his unpaid clerk, and Lou, one of the narrator’s lovers, and Sean, another lover who goes mad so incapable is he of dealing with his “criminal” nature.
Then comes the summer after the narrator’s freshman year at the University of Michigan. During this joyous weather his father (humorless, business-minded) seeks to drive the narrator’s gayness out of him through a superfluity of yard work. The old man’s apoplectic at his ex-wife’s suggestion that his son is gay because of the divorce. The guilt-ridden father naturally hates his son for this and takes it out on him in yard work. His new step-mother tells of how much the old man has wanted to kill him. We find out later, tellingly, that dad hates men, doesn’t trust them, and is very much a loner, if a successful one.
Last I heard, a month ago, there were 77,000 young men still in so-called regression therapy programs run by US churches. That‘s 2018. Can you imagine what the climate must have been like in the late 1950s? And this is a narrator who knows what he is by the time he’s out of adolescence. Sadly he’s in thrall to a speed-freak psychiatrist who promises to cure him. His father is footing the bill. He is sick shamed by what he is: the crimes he commits, his disease. He yearns for the no-self of Buddhism. He dearly wants the cure his wired shrink has promised him. He hates his incessant men’s room cruising. No one wants to be gay, you see. The mainstream medical establishment still views homosexuality as an illness, and so it remains a pathology described in the pages of the DSM. No wonder James Baldwin moved to Paris about this time, 1955. No wonder White lived there for 16 years.
(“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it. The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with ‘sexual orientation disturbance’ for people ‘in conflict with’ their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.”—from Psychology Today)
The queer railery scenes are quaint, the old-fashioned shrill queenliness funny. “We piled into a car with some friends of his, all a few years older than I, and as we passed a policeman directing traffic, the driver lowerered his window and shouted, ‘Love your hat, Tilly!’” “Hush, you’re a caution,” someone in the backseat said, “don’t upset Lily law, she be bad, that girl.” I’m no fan of sex in novels, but at least White’s has the virtue of alacrity, like violence in Poe.
This fiction gives voice to an historically maligned population, and that’s vital, but in the end it transcends social function. I’m trying to think of some of the great American novels of the 20th century. You can draw up your own list. I’ll include Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. I think this novel stands securely among them. There’s not a false page in it. The novel then ends with the Stonewall Uprising, the first roar of Gay Pride in 1969. By this time the narrator is 29.
This is an astonishing book! I also enjoyed White’s remorselessly grim Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel. I look forward to catching up on his output, which is ample, though this one calls for immediate re-reading.
“Every day he looked thinner, older, more fragile, almost like someone recently dead who appears in our dreams, unshaved and reproachful.”
“In the hollow of her neck there was a smudge of red paint, just where a grandmother in a play might have worn a cameo on a black ribbon.”
”The sitter was posing as though his profile was about to go on the coin of the realm.”
“Outside, saltimbanques of snow were leaping up and flipping backwards.”
The story is set unpromisingly in a 1950s midwest America. The narrator at its start is 17. He attends Eton boarding school. No, not the real Eton but a fake Eton which is just across the street from an arts academy somewhere in the midwest. The two young populations rarely mingle, but our narrator, bored to death, has decided to be different and make the crossing. He meets Maria, an artist, with whom he’d rather fall in love than be gay. For at the time “The three most heinous crimes known to man were Communism, heroin, and homosexuality.”
The nearby filthy metropolis to which they abscond is Detroit. The law student William Everett Hunton has to be experienced on the page to be believed; he is a cock-crazy maniac, who prefers them short but “beercan thick.” Then there’s Tex the bookseller and Mason his unpaid clerk, and Lou, one of the narrator’s lovers, and Sean, another lover who goes mad so incapable is he of dealing with his “criminal” nature.
Then comes the summer after the narrator’s freshman year at the University of Michigan. During this joyous weather his father (humorless, business-minded) seeks to drive the narrator’s gayness out of him through a superfluity of yard work. The old man’s apoplectic at his ex-wife’s suggestion that his son is gay because of the divorce. The guilt-ridden father naturally hates his son for this and takes it out on him in yard work. His new step-mother tells of how much the old man has wanted to kill him. We find out later, tellingly, that dad hates men, doesn’t trust them, and is very much a loner, if a successful one.
Last I heard, a month ago, there were 77,000 young men still in so-called regression therapy programs run by US churches. That‘s 2018. Can you imagine what the climate must have been like in the late 1950s? And this is a narrator who knows what he is by the time he’s out of adolescence. Sadly he’s in thrall to a speed-freak psychiatrist who promises to cure him. His father is footing the bill. He is sick shamed by what he is: the crimes he commits, his disease. He yearns for the no-self of Buddhism. He dearly wants the cure his wired shrink has promised him. He hates his incessant men’s room cruising. No one wants to be gay, you see. The mainstream medical establishment still views homosexuality as an illness, and so it remains a pathology described in the pages of the DSM. No wonder James Baldwin moved to Paris about this time, 1955. No wonder White lived there for 16 years.
(“In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) asked all members attending its convention to vote on whether they believed homosexuality to be a mental disorder. 5,854 psychiatrists voted to remove homosexuality from the DSM, and 3,810 to retain it. The APA then compromised, removing homosexuality from the DSM but replacing it, in effect, with ‘sexual orientation disturbance’ for people ‘in conflict with’ their sexual orientation. Not until 1987 did homosexuality completely fall out of the DSM.”—from Psychology Today)
The queer railery scenes are quaint, the old-fashioned shrill queenliness funny. “We piled into a car with some friends of his, all a few years older than I, and as we passed a policeman directing traffic, the driver lowerered his window and shouted, ‘Love your hat, Tilly!’” “Hush, you’re a caution,” someone in the backseat said, “don’t upset Lily law, she be bad, that girl.” I’m no fan of sex in novels, but at least White’s has the virtue of alacrity, like violence in Poe.
This fiction gives voice to an historically maligned population, and that’s vital, but in the end it transcends social function. I’m trying to think of some of the great American novels of the 20th century. You can draw up your own list. I’ll include Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man and Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. I think this novel stands securely among them. There’s not a false page in it. The novel then ends with the Stonewall Uprising, the first roar of Gay Pride in 1969. By this time the narrator is 29.
This is an astonishing book! I also enjoyed White’s remorselessly grim Hotel de Dream: A New York Novel. I look forward to catching up on his output, which is ample, though this one calls for immediate re-reading.
June 4, 2025
RIP Edmund White 13 January 1940 - 3 June 2025
A wonderful writer who made me laugh almost more than anyone else. He was totally outrageous, as in "Edmund, you can't say THAT!!"
The Beautiful Room is Empty is a classic memoir/novel
The Darker Proof is a collection of excellent short stories
My Lives is an eye-popping sort-of autobiography
and there are plenty of others I haven't read yet. All highly recommended!
A wonderful writer who made me laugh almost more than anyone else. He was totally outrageous, as in "Edmund, you can't say THAT!!"
The Beautiful Room is Empty is a classic memoir/novel
The Darker Proof is a collection of excellent short stories
My Lives is an eye-popping sort-of autobiography
and there are plenty of others I haven't read yet. All highly recommended!
March 21, 2011
White’s follow-up to A Boy's Own Story is an admirable effort. The language is still extraordinary. The various episodes recounted in the author’s life are certainly free from sentiment – if anything, the author leans towards self-evisceration and distance. Perhaps this absence of nostalgia is what makes the book rather off-putting. In A Boy’s Own, the style was eye-opening. In Beautiful Room, at times it feels a little too self-consciously alienated, as if edmund white himself is fearful of revealing too much emotion, in case it is taken as weakness. Still, the recounting of gay life in the 50s is a fascinating experience. Overall, a worthy novel. Although I have to admit to missing the muted psychodrama in A Boy’s Own between the cold-eyed and rather creepy narrator and his equally strange and chilly father.
Okay, so that’s the end of the review. Now I’m of a mind to recount my own tales of a boy and his dad, so readers with no interest in navel-gazing should probably move on!
Okay, so that’s the end of the review. Now I’m of a mind to recount my own tales of a boy and his dad, so readers with no interest in navel-gazing should probably move on!
August 18, 2022
I read this because I was dragooned into leading the discussion for it in one of my book clubs, the octogenarian gay men's book club. It's not really called that but that is how it often feels, given that even 40-year-olds are treated like wee babes. Thanks to the MTA I arrived 45 minutes late, but we still had an interesting discussion.
Edmund White is an older gay man, HIV+, and the very recent recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction. He writes lucid, apollonian prose but seemingly without feeling or substance. It often felt like a slightly more modern, American Jean Genet, who out-smutted White but had a similar penchant for flitting between gritty sex and ultra-detailed, annoyingly Knausgaardian recollections.
The main theme of this installment in the trilogy is that homosexuality is some curable distraction, where falling off the wagon involves a ton of anonymous, cruisy bathroom sex. White, for the most part, laments his disposition while only vaguely trying to "address" it: whether via his fraternity or amphetamine addled psychiatrist or dalliances with half-hearted beards. And it's not clear at the end whether he thinks being gay is something to be cured--he does attack the Russian "Simon" and he feels exhilarated by the eruption of Stonewall, but there's kind of a full measure of internalized homophobia and denial to undo here.
So this is one conflicted man, and although I was growing a bit weary of the rococo prose without underlying plot development, I may read the third installment just for the sense of closure it might have an outside chance of bringing.
Edmund White is an older gay man, HIV+, and the very recent recipient of the PEN/Faulkner Award for American Fiction. He writes lucid, apollonian prose but seemingly without feeling or substance. It often felt like a slightly more modern, American Jean Genet, who out-smutted White but had a similar penchant for flitting between gritty sex and ultra-detailed, annoyingly Knausgaardian recollections.
The main theme of this installment in the trilogy is that homosexuality is some curable distraction, where falling off the wagon involves a ton of anonymous, cruisy bathroom sex. White, for the most part, laments his disposition while only vaguely trying to "address" it: whether via his fraternity or amphetamine addled psychiatrist or dalliances with half-hearted beards. And it's not clear at the end whether he thinks being gay is something to be cured--he does attack the Russian "Simon" and he feels exhilarated by the eruption of Stonewall, but there's kind of a full measure of internalized homophobia and denial to undo here.
So this is one conflicted man, and although I was growing a bit weary of the rococo prose without underlying plot development, I may read the third installment just for the sense of closure it might have an outside chance of bringing.
February 12, 2025
Un libro entretenido, pero una historia que ya se ha contado incontables veces sin aportar nada diferente.
September 11, 2009
Edmund White's writing style is more or less a series of incredibly vivid vignettes linked together through simple chronology. And while the individual events, memories and musings are often beautiful in and of themselves, it has a curiously monotone effect after a while, almost like banging the same chords on a piano over and over--not even the most gorgeous notes can sustain their impact if piled on top of each other with nothing between to showcase their individual merit. That said, White's novel is reported to be heavily autobiographical, and that's where it's chief value lies: as a record of the formidable struggles of growing up gay in mid-America during the 1950's. White is (almost) able to get away with his lack of artistry simply because of the compelling content, and how eloquently it is often conveyed.
"I'd learned to feel nostalgia for my own youth while I was living it."
"I'd learned to feel nostalgia for my own youth while I was living it."
May 20, 2022
Somehow the beauty of this book is how White is able to convey the loneliness felt by generations of young gay men coming of age and, with resilience and experience, how less empty the rooms of our own felt.
October 24, 2010
Titling your novel "The Beautiful Room is Empty" is really asking for it, and this book unfortunately lives up to the insult of its title. The luminous, mordantly insightful writing style White is known for is in full flower here, but it all unspools across the page with no purpose, no heart. The deeply moving emotional bedrock you usually feel grounding you so powerfully while wandering through White's patented haze of romantic, vaguely connected set pieces seemed totally lacking here. The ending was abrupt and unbelievable, the characters (particularly our narrator/autobiographical stand-in) all flat, lost, and insipid. Reading about them was like cruising the tearooms of Cranbrook and U Mich because one can think of nothing better or more meaningful to do with one's life -- only a marginally pleasant experience, offering me a few choice one-liners but absolutely nothing long-lasting, leaving me in the end feeling just overindulgent, sad, and a little bit sick.
January 11, 2025
Entire book is kind of like a treatise on pre-Stonewall consciousness. Men are desirable only if coded as straight. Every homosexual is desperately seeking their cure. The protagonist cannot trust his own judgement, for he accepts as a given that he is sick, depraved. The body tells them something – perhaps what they want is more than just a quick handjob underneath the bathroom stall door? – but the mind rejects it. This is why the ending (a terse, elegant account of Stonewall itself) is so moving. The men of this book are grasping for a life that suddenly bursts forth in its final pages.
White is a better writer here than in A Boy’s Own Story. Certainly funnier. Paragraphs seem to function as entire thoughts. When a new one begins we may suddenly be in an entirely different place (both literally and intellectually). Sometimes this works, other times I found it irritating. There’s still an opaqueness to the prose that I feel like he sheds in his later, more blatantly autobiographical books. One feels as if they are seeing certain scenes here through a fogged window; at times the cloudy vision gives the proceedings a somewhat mythic air, at other times one wishes White would simply wipe away the condensation and be frank about what he’s trying to say.
Some really stunning metaphors throughout. I love the way White tends to create entire metaphoric ‘scenes’ in this book. For example: an older man is talking, and White feels that in that particular moment he can see this person’s younger self peeking through their aged face. He describes this as being like seeing a young man walk up to a slightly fogged window, look at him, then walk away (this is almost certainly where I cribbed my previous metaphor about his opaque writing from).
Also loved the friendship with Maria. I was very moved by it. White writes her with such fondness and care.
White is a better writer here than in A Boy’s Own Story. Certainly funnier. Paragraphs seem to function as entire thoughts. When a new one begins we may suddenly be in an entirely different place (both literally and intellectually). Sometimes this works, other times I found it irritating. There’s still an opaqueness to the prose that I feel like he sheds in his later, more blatantly autobiographical books. One feels as if they are seeing certain scenes here through a fogged window; at times the cloudy vision gives the proceedings a somewhat mythic air, at other times one wishes White would simply wipe away the condensation and be frank about what he’s trying to say.
Some really stunning metaphors throughout. I love the way White tends to create entire metaphoric ‘scenes’ in this book. For example: an older man is talking, and White feels that in that particular moment he can see this person’s younger self peeking through their aged face. He describes this as being like seeing a young man walk up to a slightly fogged window, look at him, then walk away (this is almost certainly where I cribbed my previous metaphor about his opaque writing from).
Also loved the friendship with Maria. I was very moved by it. White writes her with such fondness and care.
August 31, 2009
This novel, although I suppose it is usually categorized under gay fiction, is an excellent coming of age novel that picks at the conservative Midwestern society of the late 50s and ends up describing both the promises and failures of New York City in the early to mid 60s. If I had discovered this book in high school, I would have fallen in love with all of the characters and over-identified with their struggle to live as their true selves, although I would have been horrified by the anonymous bathroom sex (and really, that's still horrifying to me) and would have missed all of the gentle jokes about their beliefs about art and communism. One of the main points of discussion in the book is the role of psychoanalysis during that time in understanding sexual behaviors. I think for teens or young adults reading this book today, it would be especially fruitful to discuss which struggles the characters had that were based on prevailing social views, which struggles were really inherent to their psychologies, and which ones ultimately ended up being more important to their development as people.
February 24, 2010
i cried on the subway.
a lot of people discredit this book, saying it is not a novel, that it is a thinly veiled autobiography, that the narrator is hard to love. all of these things may be true, but take away from the fact at hand: this is really good writing. the first time "searing" has ever come to mind to describe something i've read. from "i did not travel." on page 223, i don't think i breathed at all while reading the last six pages. sadly, the beautiful room is, in fact, empty - thank god this book is so full.
a lot of people discredit this book, saying it is not a novel, that it is a thinly veiled autobiography, that the narrator is hard to love. all of these things may be true, but take away from the fact at hand: this is really good writing. the first time "searing" has ever come to mind to describe something i've read. from "i did not travel." on page 223, i don't think i breathed at all while reading the last six pages. sadly, the beautiful room is, in fact, empty - thank god this book is so full.
December 19, 2019
Edmund’s Midwestern humor makes a welcome, rare appearance (his parentheticals are drier than this review).
Basically a reallyfuckingwell-written John Waters deal. And that’s meant as a huge compliment.
Basically a reallyfuckingwell-written John Waters deal. And that’s meant as a huge compliment.
June 6, 2025
Ed White is just an absolute pleasure to read. I can’t believe he’s f***ing dead 😭😭😭
March 17, 2024
Wow! Now when I read queer fiction. I'll know the situations the characters find themselves in ...are plausible
October 27, 2024
I understand why White’s early work is a literary landmark for gay fiction, but it tends to be a little underwhelming for me.
January 16, 2020
“...I believe no one else can correct our feelings; they are pure, incorrigible.”
"Bumping shoulders turned us into chums, and we stole little, embarrassed smiles at each other and looked at our feet. Falling in love is slightly embarrassing because love is a conspicuous and weight thing. It is a marvel. I felt a bit like a hunter who's captured a unicorn and parades it through the town streets, but the crowds were discreet enough not to stare."
In The Beautiful Room is Empty Edmund White introduces us to his semi-autobiographical (unnamed) narrator, who comes of age in the late 1940's-1950's. He knows he is homosexual in his last few years of high school, but lacks a mentor or support system. He gravitates towards the arts college across the street from his preparatory school, and becomes friends with the bohemian students there. He meets Maria (she herself is coming to terms with being a lesbian), and they become lifelong friends. "She did have a sharp way of arguing ideas, of saying "Nonsense!" or "What rubbish!" which reminded me of our English exchange student, who, despite his shingles and shyness, was intellectually combative. Of course, Maria was sufficiently American to smile every time she called me a 'total idiot.'"
After high school, our narrator goes on to the University of Michigan. His dad is an alumni there, and he receives a legacy invite to his father's fraternity. He begins living several lives there--the one he shows in front of his fraternity brothers, the one he relaxes into around his artsy/bohemian friends, and an emerging personality which he uses in several men's bathrooms around campus. His inability to form a cohesive identity continues to be a problem when he moves to New York City after graduation, and seeks employment there. White ends his story with the Stonewall riots. "It's really our Bastille Day," Lou said. But we couldn't find a single mention in the press of the turning point of our lives."
Bottom line: White tells an important story. Previously, I read Collage by Ted Wojtasik which took place in the 1980's, and highlighted the AIDS epidemic. Here we see the marginalized lifestyle these men were forced into due to the intolerance of society. Be aware that White doesn't gloss over anything. Some of the descriptions are quite graphic. Our narrator was told over and over that he was sick, a deviant, mentally ill, unstable, etc. He internalized what was said, and genuinely believed there was something wrong with him. His story shows the importance of gay pride parades, supportive communities, and allowing those with LGBTQ lifestyles to develop their own moral codes (including same-sex marriage!). Being cut adrift from the morals of mainstream society was disastrous for our narrator mentally. For many men, it was disastrous medically as well. Given 3.5 stars or a rating of Very Good. Recommended!
"Bumping shoulders turned us into chums, and we stole little, embarrassed smiles at each other and looked at our feet. Falling in love is slightly embarrassing because love is a conspicuous and weight thing. It is a marvel. I felt a bit like a hunter who's captured a unicorn and parades it through the town streets, but the crowds were discreet enough not to stare."
In The Beautiful Room is Empty Edmund White introduces us to his semi-autobiographical (unnamed) narrator, who comes of age in the late 1940's-1950's. He knows he is homosexual in his last few years of high school, but lacks a mentor or support system. He gravitates towards the arts college across the street from his preparatory school, and becomes friends with the bohemian students there. He meets Maria (she herself is coming to terms with being a lesbian), and they become lifelong friends. "She did have a sharp way of arguing ideas, of saying "Nonsense!" or "What rubbish!" which reminded me of our English exchange student, who, despite his shingles and shyness, was intellectually combative. Of course, Maria was sufficiently American to smile every time she called me a 'total idiot.'"
After high school, our narrator goes on to the University of Michigan. His dad is an alumni there, and he receives a legacy invite to his father's fraternity. He begins living several lives there--the one he shows in front of his fraternity brothers, the one he relaxes into around his artsy/bohemian friends, and an emerging personality which he uses in several men's bathrooms around campus. His inability to form a cohesive identity continues to be a problem when he moves to New York City after graduation, and seeks employment there. White ends his story with the Stonewall riots. "It's really our Bastille Day," Lou said. But we couldn't find a single mention in the press of the turning point of our lives."
Bottom line: White tells an important story. Previously, I read Collage by Ted Wojtasik which took place in the 1980's, and highlighted the AIDS epidemic. Here we see the marginalized lifestyle these men were forced into due to the intolerance of society. Be aware that White doesn't gloss over anything. Some of the descriptions are quite graphic. Our narrator was told over and over that he was sick, a deviant, mentally ill, unstable, etc. He internalized what was said, and genuinely believed there was something wrong with him. His story shows the importance of gay pride parades, supportive communities, and allowing those with LGBTQ lifestyles to develop their own moral codes (including same-sex marriage!). Being cut adrift from the morals of mainstream society was disastrous for our narrator mentally. For many men, it was disastrous medically as well. Given 3.5 stars or a rating of Very Good. Recommended!
October 12, 2015
When I went to get this book out of the library, I noticed that one of the subject headings was Stonewall. The timing seemed apt, as the Stonewall movie had just come out, with all the criticism of both white-washing and making the main character cisgendered. Neat, I thought! Maybe this book (fictional) will be a corrective to that.
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision here.
In the meantime, you can read the entire review at Smorgasbook
June 4, 2017
White's vignettes are raunchy, personally implicating, but they're not particularly interesting. He loves an overwrought metaphor and the whole book comes packaged in this wistful voice that has become the standard for the queer memoir. Judy Garland, Greco-Roman mythology-- it's here and it shouldn't be. He gives his types lavish, over the top dialogue, but richly drawn caricatures are still caricatures. Whole experiences get funneled into established outlines for what gay people were supposed to be at Mid-Century. Maybe I'm naive, but I've got to believe things were more complicated then as now.
I sometimes hang out at Jacob Riis Beach-- glad to see the tradition of debauchery goes back far enough to absolve today's mischief.
I sometimes hang out at Jacob Riis Beach-- glad to see the tradition of debauchery goes back far enough to absolve today's mischief.
November 5, 2023
I don't know when I first read this book, maybe in the 1990s, I certainly read it at least twice after 2000, I also know that I read it before A Boy's Own Story and long before it became a trilogy. I thought, and still think, it wonderful. I think he is a great and important writer who, if you want to understand gay life as it has developed, then a great deal of the story is there in what he has experienced and lived. The fact that so many may criticise what he said is in a way testament to what he and others opened up for so many. I will always be in awe of him, even when I disagree with him. He is to much part of my life to look at dispassionately.
March 17, 2024
Giovanni’s room but make it cunty
December 16, 2020
This book got me thinking. Took me way out of my comfort zone and into the thoughts of a gay middle-class white man who reached adulthood in the 1960s. Last chapter occurs at the time of Stonewall riots.
I sense that the overall tone of this book is rebellion. And the author describes his life in a removed way. He doesn’t convey much affection or empathy for others.
He lives unapologetically and embraces all his desires without hesitating.
I feel like I can compare this to The Swimming Pool Library, in terms of a “type” of narrator perhaps.
And obviously this book wasn’t written for people like myself, I don’t believe. Intended audience might be the types of fellas who our author desired. And that’s ok. But now I’m getting curious about this genre. Perhaps literature courses exist about it, in the academic arena.
I sense that the overall tone of this book is rebellion. And the author describes his life in a removed way. He doesn’t convey much affection or empathy for others.
He lives unapologetically and embraces all his desires without hesitating.
I feel like I can compare this to The Swimming Pool Library, in terms of a “type” of narrator perhaps.
And obviously this book wasn’t written for people like myself, I don’t believe. Intended audience might be the types of fellas who our author desired. And that’s ok. But now I’m getting curious about this genre. Perhaps literature courses exist about it, in the academic arena.
November 16, 2022
Really enjoyed the first half or so. Then I felt it was a bit aimless and I thought the ending was cheap, but it was written in the 90’s after all…But the writing early on is wonderful.
This would be more of a 3.5 but not a great rating system on here!
This would be more of a 3.5 but not a great rating system on here!
March 31, 2014
You got to atleast give Edmund White credit for crafting such strong visuals regarding sex and the male form: "revealing a hairless chest marbled by blue veins and decorated like a piece of wedding cake with two candle sockets in pink frosting--the erect nipples" (pg. 178).
"..untidy Minnie Mouse with big thighs of mushroom pallor." (pg. 175).
"the tan line suggested poolside swimsuit, frosted glass, sunglasses....But the hickory-hard straining of this cock upward spelled animal--a straight line of ascent inflating slightly as the balls rose and tightened for blast-off, a thrust that propelled life upward." (pg 57).
"His skin had a burnt-almond taste and smell..." (pg 93).
Otherwise, I found this book to be a great tool to get into the mind of the gay man back in the dark ages and the torment that one suffered. And that's about all I can say.It's too bad he's got a severely conceited voice that kept me from connecting to his characther much. His friends and companions in the book I found to be the saving grace though they came and went too quickly.
"..untidy Minnie Mouse with big thighs of mushroom pallor." (pg. 175).
"the tan line suggested poolside swimsuit, frosted glass, sunglasses....But the hickory-hard straining of this cock upward spelled animal--a straight line of ascent inflating slightly as the balls rose and tightened for blast-off, a thrust that propelled life upward." (pg 57).
"His skin had a burnt-almond taste and smell..." (pg 93).
Otherwise, I found this book to be a great tool to get into the mind of the gay man back in the dark ages and the torment that one suffered. And that's about all I can say.It's too bad he's got a severely conceited voice that kept me from connecting to his characther much. His friends and companions in the book I found to be the saving grace though they came and went too quickly.
October 25, 2008
I felt like I needed some gay literature in my life and was hoping for a dramatized historical fiction that would be perhaps heartwrenching or informative or something. The character was neither likeable, lovable, hatable, or commendable. I had a hard time reading the book because I didn't care what happened to the main character, or even the supporting characters. The last 50 pages were good. All the others I felt were on the verge of poor writing. At least foggy - I felt like the plot had no direction. This book failed to evoke ANY emotion from me. Just read the last 50 pages if you must.
August 7, 2022
My Edmund White-a-thon enters it's 3rd year and this is the 4th book and the 2nd in the so called Edmund Trilogy. Art, Sex and lots of self loathing, funny at times but mostly sad. Ends very abruptly during the Stonewall riots. I preferred this much more than A Boys Own Story,
July 8, 2019
The Beautiful Room is Empty introduces an upper middle-class college boy in the 1950's. Desperate to shed his Midwestern American skin, he immerses himself in a Bohemian social group, idolizing popular topics like socialism and Beatnik poetry; he's gay, and his low self-esteem couples with a compulsion to follow social norms, leading him to live out his sexuality in secrecy and danger, in grimy bathroom stalls and in dirty subway stations. As the fictionalized memoir progresses, the protagonist meets many friends, companions, and lovers. Through each experience, he learns about life, love, and himself. The story ends at the scene of the infamous Stonewall riots in NYC in 1969.
Edmund White's protagonist is a privileged white male, and yet, he is still quite marginalized from mainstream society. While he is able to overcome various obstacles, many of his friends succumb to social norms and family expectations out of despair and isolation. This surrender takes on various shapes, such as loveless (straight) marriage, or even suicide. The privilege of being a college-educated, white male grants him many resources to which less privileged gay people never would have access.
I found this to be an interesting glimpse at gay life during the 50's and 60's. How much things have changed in America since then. Still yet, there are still many countries in which the gay community lives in secrecy and fear. We have come far in the fight for LGBTQ rights, but there is still such a long way to go. Perhaps this account puts it into perspective how society can be changed by persistent and fearless people.
Edmund White's protagonist is a privileged white male, and yet, he is still quite marginalized from mainstream society. While he is able to overcome various obstacles, many of his friends succumb to social norms and family expectations out of despair and isolation. This surrender takes on various shapes, such as loveless (straight) marriage, or even suicide. The privilege of being a college-educated, white male grants him many resources to which less privileged gay people never would have access.
I found this to be an interesting glimpse at gay life during the 50's and 60's. How much things have changed in America since then. Still yet, there are still many countries in which the gay community lives in secrecy and fear. We have come far in the fight for LGBTQ rights, but there is still such a long way to go. Perhaps this account puts it into perspective how society can be changed by persistent and fearless people.
August 25, 2025
I was inspired to read this novel by a Reddit post on a scene from the book in which a group of Mandarin speakers become deferential towards another speaker of the “prestige” Mandarin dialect, which launched a discussion on whether such a thing actually exists and also whether THE prestige dialect (i.e. Beijing Mandarin) is actually regarded as like…prestigious.
I’m pretty sure this does not actually occur in this book bc the closest scene matching this description involves a Hokkien speaker and the other characters defer to her not due to language-related reasons but rather because she is intimidating and beautiful and knows Old High German.
anyway the book is very good! has some of the best writing on writing that I’ve read in a while (“Every criticism seemed irrefutable if previously unsuspected. It was true I loved my characters, to whom I’d distributed the various voices and vices of my friends. It was true I wrote in a trance and never revised; my mother had told me I was a genius. A genius doesn’t grope, learn, rework, or even work. And it was true I wrote to be adored -- by my mother first of all, and then by Lou or whomever I was with. Yes, I wanted fame, and when the heat of vision, fired by Drambuie, was on me in my white room, I felt I was already famous. But there was another reason to write: to redeem the sin of my life by turning it into the virtue of art.”)
I’m pretty sure this does not actually occur in this book bc the closest scene matching this description involves a Hokkien speaker and the other characters defer to her not due to language-related reasons but rather because she is intimidating and beautiful and knows Old High German.
anyway the book is very good! has some of the best writing on writing that I’ve read in a while (“Every criticism seemed irrefutable if previously unsuspected. It was true I loved my characters, to whom I’d distributed the various voices and vices of my friends. It was true I wrote in a trance and never revised; my mother had told me I was a genius. A genius doesn’t grope, learn, rework, or even work. And it was true I wrote to be adored -- by my mother first of all, and then by Lou or whomever I was with. Yes, I wanted fame, and when the heat of vision, fired by Drambuie, was on me in my white room, I felt I was already famous. But there was another reason to write: to redeem the sin of my life by turning it into the virtue of art.”)
April 17, 2020
The second book in White's (faux) autobiographical trilogy doesn't entirely live up to how great the first one was (A Boy's Own Story) but it is still undeniably an influential queer masterpiece. I just love how reading it feels like you have access to the main character's head, experiencing the world through his eyes and getting a first hand account of what it was like being gay in a 50's and 60's America. White is quickly becoming my favourite queer writer and I cannot wait to read more of his works.
August 13, 2021
One of those 1001 Books you must read before you die that I could have done without. This is gay lit and therefore there is not much I find worth reading. I do not care to read about gay sex, gay toilet behavior and therefore I don't think that qualifies as literature I must read. What is good about the book is that it is a coming of age story and a coming out story. I guess this is the second book of a trilogy that is almost semi autobiographical. It tells the story of gays in the 1960s up to the 70s. I really did not see much that qualifies as literature.
October 13, 2015
For many gay 'men of a certain age,' this book is all-too familiar on various levels. Sometimes dark, sometimes sexy, sometimes sad. As social acceptance of gays moves forward, this book will, I hope, become a historical record of the not-so-good old days.
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