The Beautiful Room Is Empty

Edmund White's 'Beautiful Room' is a moving, wonderful story, crafted around the late teens to late twenties of the narrator, known only as 'Bunny' to his friend Lou, one of the many lively, memorable characters encountered along the way, as well as Tex, a flaboyant bookstore owner, who gives 'Bunny' his earliest education in 'gay slang.''Bunny', at the beginning of the novel, is a prep-school student coming to terms with... Read Full Review

Being in a mood of reverence for Edmund White's biographies of Jean Genet and Marcel Proust and having enjoyed "The Married Man", I have returned to White's career-making novels and find that they not only withstand the test of time, they are indeed truly even finer novels than remembered. "The Beautiful Room Is Empty" is the best summation of the agonies of growing into adulthood and finding that niche of destiny as any... Read Full Review

This book is the second in the trilogy beginning with A Boy's Own Story and ending with The Farewell Symphony. To get the full impact,read them in sequence.White is one of the finest writers on his subjects, both in language and content. The era of the 60's from the buttoned down end of the Eisenhower era to the Stonewall Uprising are compellingly seen through one man's eyes. (White was a participant in Stonewall and the... Read Full Review

Reading Edmund White's work is, I suppose, what experiencing grand opera in a latrine would probably be like - a darkly exciting, unorthodox and revealing artistic encounter that one would curiously find oneself wanting to revisit. 'The Beautiful Room Is Empty' - like its successor 'The Farewell Symphony' - is sumptuous, exquisitely paced and compels its possessed possessor to gluttonously read and re-read its skilfully... Read Full Review

Ranked 63 on the 100 best Gay and Lesbian books list. I decided to pick it up thinking it seemed interesting. I had never read anything by White. In short, I was so pleasently surprised. I had tried to read some of his work previously but it seemed quite overwrought. The character in this book (like in any great book) come to life and you (the reader) feel they are tangible / that they exist. As it ends on the night... Read Full Review