Our Young Man

About this book

"Whites prose is as fresh as a series of slaps to the face filled with reckless energy . . . Our Young Man speeds you along with its winningly hectic prose." --The New York Times Book Review Our Young Man follows the life of a gorgeous Frenchman Guy as he goes from the industrial city of Clermont-Ferrand to the top of the modeling profession in New York Citys fashion world becoming the darling of Fire Islands gay community. Like Wildes Dorian Grey Guy never seems to age; at thirty-five he is still modeling still enjoying lavish gifts from older men who believe hes twenty-three--though their attentions always come at a price. Ambivalently Guy lets them believe driven especially by the memory of growing up poor until he finds he needs the lie to secure not only wealth but love itself. Surveying the full spectrum of gay amorous life through the disco era and into the age of AIDS Edmund White (who worked at Vogue for ten years) explores the power of physical beauty--to fascinate to enslave and to deceive--with sparkling wit and pathos.