| A couple share their sexual histories in this elegantly filthy report from the frontiers of desire Edmund White’s latest book – his 30th, by my count – bears the subtitle “Another posthumous novel”. This alludes not only to the fact that White has continued to write prolifically after suffering multiple strokes, but also to those critics who have dismissed his most recent novels as an old-school irrelevance to the brave new world of contemporary queer fiction. The acerbic preface to this new one suggests that we’re about to read an autobiographical account of an affair, written by a ravaged old queen who must surely be White himself. However, the opening pages of the book itself plunge us straight – no pun intended – into a turbulent, picaresque and obviously fictional narrative. The year is 2050; a married couple are holed up in a remote Swiss chalet while the husband recovers from a skiing accident. To while away this enforced convalescence, they decide to write a pair of complementary memoirs that will describe their previous sexual careers with absolute honesty. In order to make the game more exquisite, they will take it in turns to read these confessions out loud – meaning, of course, that we will be allowed to eavesdrop. We quickly discover that this is no ordinary marriage. The wife, Constance, is in her early 30s, while her husband, Ruggero, is at least four decades older; she is an African American orphan, while he is a legendarily well-connected (not to mention well-hung) Sicilian aristocrat who also happens to be a world-famous baroque harpsichordist. Oh, and the sometime lover of a deceased and forgotten gay novelist called Edmund White. Continue reading... |
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