My Lives, by Edmund White

I always enjoyed reading autobiographical literature, like memoirs, correspondence, etc; it gives one a most vivid sense not only of the author's personality and ideas but also of his time and contemporaries, someone a History nerd like me finds always fascinating. I hadn't read much by Edmund White - I liked Skinned Alive, but found A Boy's Own Story somewhat dull - but recently I was reminded of him when I read Everyone is Watching, where he is one of the characters, then there was an article about him in the new York Times, where he was praised by several writers I admire, like Garth Greenwell, Edouard Louis and Pajtim Statovci, so I ordered My Lives to give it a try.

I was not disappointed - it's a very interesting book, extremely well written, organised not chronologically but by themes, describing the life and development of an intelligent man through most interesting times. The chapters about his parents, his shrinks and Europe are five star writing; I don't share his admiration for Genet, who I always considered an overrated writer and a disagreeable character, and I found his opinions on women somewhat silly, even if I liked the candour with which he states them. As for his sex life, when at a certain point he writes: "I can imagine some of my friends reading this and muttering, 'TMI - Too Much Information', or 'Are we to be spared nothing? Must we have every detail about these tiresome senile shenanigans?'", I thought: "this is exactly what I'm feeling!". But then the simple fact that he wrote this in such an ironic self deprecating way reconciled me with the narrative, even if sometimes so detailed and graphic that bordered on boring. But I also found it refreshing to see someone writing about subjects usually considered too scabrous to be approached by "serious" writers in such a candid way, and never distasteful. White speaks about gay sex, gender issues or prostitution in a most common-sensical way, never bothering with the political correctness and puritanism that haunt these issues in the present time, so dishearteningly dominated by Byzantine discourses of identity theories and such. Just for that, he deserves my praise.