A Boy’s Own Story – Edmund White
The edition I read opens with an overlong essay by Allan Gurganus, drenched in pretentious, self-regarding prose. Paragraph after paragraph of reverent, overwrought admiration — the kind more interested in proving the writer’s own intelligence than helping the reader – that nearly derailed the reading experience before it began.
I’m glad I pushed through, at least initially, because the novel itself briefly shows flashes of something sharper and more engaging. Unfortunately, that promise doesn’t last. Gurganus, it turns out, was an excellent warm-up act.
The same affectation, self-importance and literary peacocking that weigh down the introduction are baked into Edmund White’s narrative voice as well. Whether intentional or not, it makes “A Boy’s Own Story” a surprisingly exhausting read.
I understand why this book mattered when it was first published. It was unashamedly queer and challenged the tidy mythology of the Eisenhower-era nuclear family. Historically, that counts for something. As a reading experience in 2025, though, it’s far less compelling.
The opening chapter genuinely intrigued me. It works as a kind of bait-and-switch: starting with a critique of adult hypocrisy, class anxiety and rigid gender expectations before pivoting toward the narrator’s emerging sexuality. There’s something real there, especially in how shame is negotiated, rationalized or ignored outright. But that initial momentum never evolves. Instead, the book keeps returning to the same emotional territory without deepening it.
The writing itself can be strong, but the pacing is abysmal. Long stretches drift into stream-of-consciousness, leaving the novel far less transgressive than it seems to believe and far less psychologically revealing than it wants to be.
I ultimately DNF’d at about 75 percent. I genuinely tried to finish, but I found myself dreading picking it up at night. No book should feel like work unless it’s offering something meaningful in return.
My breaking point came during a scene where the narrator is sleeping in his therapist’s office, trying to rouse the man with coffee and Dexedrine. I stopped and thought: How did we get here, and why am I supposed to care? That was enough.
This book may be a pioneer, but I don’t think it’s essential gay reading — not unless you’re interested in a very specific, very dated form of self-loathing filtered through ornate language.
In the end, it felt like an exercise in frustratingly diminishing returns.
Rating (story): 2/5 stars
Rating (narration): N/A
Format: eBook (personal library)
Dates read: November 13 – December 15, 2025
Multi-tasking: N/A
