Acclaimed chronicler of gay life in post-war America
Edmund White, who has died aged 85, was passing the Stonewall Inn – a gay bar in Greenwich Village, New York – in the early hours of 28 June 1969 when the police raided the premises. It was the second raid in a week, and this time, the bar's patrons fought back, leading to what became known as the Stonewall riots. This event proved to be a turning point. "Up till that moment we had all thought that homosexuality was a medical term," White wrote. "Suddenly we saw that we could be a minority group – with rights, a culture, an agenda." He was not a "blazing militant" himself, said The Guardian; with the sensibility of a "midwestern Marcel Proust", he did not "do anger". But in the years that followed he wrote confidently, often graphically and to great acclaim, about the experiences of gay men in novels and non-fiction books including 1977's "The Joy of Gay Sex". A "unique pre-Aids guide to sexual practices and etiquette", it was released "at a time when such information was exceptionally hard to find in straight America, and made him, overnight, an inspiration and a scandalous celebrity".
Five years later, he became known internationally when he published the semi-autobiographical "A Boy's Own Story", said The Daily Telegraph, about a teenager trying to come to terms with his sexuality in 1950s America. The first part of a trilogy, it was followed by "The Beautiful Room is Empty", which sees its narrator throwing himself into gay life in the 1960s; and 1997's "The Farewell Symphony", set against the devastation of the Aids crisis. "I thought," he wrote, "that never had a group been placed on such a rapid cycle, oppressed in the 1950s, freed in the 1960s, exalted in the 1970s, and wiped out in the 1980s." He could recall, he said, the unrestrained "joy in certain quarters when the 'fags' started to die". White was himself told he was HIV-positive in 1985, but turned out to have a slowly progressing form of the disease, and so while his partner, along with scores of his friends and ex-lovers, fell victim to the epidemic, he lived long enough to make use of emerging antiretroviral treatments. The book took its title from Haydn's "Farewell" symphony, at the end of which the musicians leave the stage one by one, leaving just two violinists to play the final notes.
Edmund White was born in Cincinnati in 1940. His mother was a school psychologist, who diagnosed him as "borderline psychotic"; his father was a civil engineer from Texas with a violent streak, who warned his bookish son to avoid "sissy things", such as wristwatches. His parents split up when he was seven. Thereafter, he saw his father for holidays, which he dreaded, recalling of one trip, "I embarrassed him by being a know-it-all and by admiring the cathedrals with too much enthusiasm."
He'd become aware early on that he was gay – he lost his virginity to a boy at summer camp aged 13 – and spent years in therapy trying to "cure" himself of what was then regarded as a mental illness. Having graduated from the University of Michigan, White moved to New York in 1962, where he worked for Time Life and established a gay identity, though it would be years before he came out. He published his first novel, "Forgetting Elena", in 1973. He wrote more than 30 books in all, including travelogues, biographies (including of Jean Genet and Arthur Rimbaud) and memoirs, in which he wrote with sometimes startling frankness about his sex life. He lived for years in Paris, but later returned to the US to teach at Brown University and Princeton. He is survived by his husband, Michael Carroll. In 2006, he likened their relationship to a marriage in 18th-century France. "You know," he said, "where you each have lovers and you go your own way sexually but you esteem each other, you're totally devoted."
