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Published May 2023
272 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
From National Book Award-honored author Edmund White, a wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich older man who falls in love with a young ballerino.
Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the young, enchanting star. Messy entanglements and fierce rivalries ensue, and the result is an unforgettable, outrageous tragicomedy that explores the many layers of love and sexual desire as only Edmund White can.
"[A]udacious...As ever, White is a master of social comedy and wry observations...Explicit descriptions of August's sex life, meanwhile, not only titillate but add poignancy to the portrayal of Aldwych's elusive desire. Readers will delight in this immersion into a lurid world of passion." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Studded with endless witticisms and brilliant social comedy, this book is likely the most clever and creative pornographic novel ever written by an octogenarian.... Everything you love about White, explicit sex, French champagne, and insouciant murder included." —Kirkus Reviews
"White's literary soap opera is engaging and compulsively readable, and in typical White fashion, there is more than a soupçon of sex." —Booklist
"White continues his legacy as a pioneer of queer literature with this mesmerizingly erotic tragicomedy." —Buzzfeed
This information about The Humble Lover was first featured
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Born in 1940, Edmund White grew up in Chicago, Illinois. He studied Chinese at the University of Michigan, graduating in 1962. From 1983 to 1990 White lived in France; France made him Chevalier (and later Officier) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1993. Since 1999 he has been a professor at Princeton University.
White is the author of many novels, including A Boy's Own Story, The Beautiful Room Is Empty, The Farewell Symphony, and A Previous Life. His nonfiction includes City Boy, Inside a Pearl, The Unpunished Vice, and other memoirs; The Flâneur, about Paris; and literary biographies and essays. He was named the 2018 winner of the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction and received the 2019 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the ...
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