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.
"With intelligence, candor, humor--and anger--White explores the most insidious aspects of oppression.... An impressive novel."--Washington Post book World
| ISBN: | 9780679755401 |
| Publication date: | 4th October 1994 |
| Author: | Edmund White |
| Publisher: | Vintage Books an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Pagination: | 240 pages |
| Series: | Vintage International |
| Genres: |
General Fiction Narrative theme: Coming of age |