Forgetting Elena

Forgetting Elena by Edmund White. hardcover edition. ISBN: 9780394483412.

Combining glittering wit, an atmosphere dense in social paranoia, and a breathtaking elegance and precision of language, Whites first novel suggests a hilarious apotheosis of the comedy of manners. For, on the privileged island community where Forgetting Elena takes place, manners are everything. Or so it seems to Whites excruciatingly self-conscious young narrator who desperately wants to be accepted in this world where everything from ones bathroom habits to the composition of "spontaneous" poetry is subject to rigid conventions. From the Trade Paperback edition.