Edmund White, the writer who knew the joys of sex
Edmund White died on June 3 at the age of 85. The American writer, who placed homosexuality at the center of his work, infused as much pleasure into his life as into his writing… And knew how to blush like no one else, recalls, moved, author Gary Shteyngart in “The Atlantic.”
Edmund White blushed like no one else. I remember seeing him at a party in his honor, during a reading of one of his cruder essays (which is saying something, in his case)—my brain had to twist and turn just to visualize the right organs in the right receptacles. Edmund's glow would somehow cover his cheeks and spread to his forehead and chin, then to his ears, to the place that was most admirable in him of all: his kind, contemplative soul. No one flushed like Ed. And when you saw him flush like that, you saw that little Midwestern boy stamping his feet with impatience to throw himself into the wide world and be accepted by it.
The path from his native Cincinnati to the salons of Europe and New York seems straighter than it actually was, just as the ease and lack of affectation of his prose concealed his immense talent. You could just as easily see him dining with Italian baronesses as in random Key West snack bars, or in the book-strewn, prodigiously messy bowels of his own apartment, and each time it was with the same flush of color in his cheeks.
The man giggled a lot. It might seem like a minor detail when you're talking about one of America's greatest writers, but Ed's giggles came from the same place as his flushes. He giggled as if you were tickling him, like a urchin constantly rediscovering his own mischievousness. Perhaps that was Ed's secret. The co-author of The Joy of Gay Sex was never jaded; he never gave up on pleasure, even when age and illness conspired to deprive him of it.
He had recently published one of his finest books, The Loves of My Life, which, admittedly, is yet another book of Edmund White memoirs, but also a brilliant exposé of the importance of sex and love, in all their concomitant variations, for the human animal and, by extension, for the artistic production of the animals that we are. At a time when the crazy mechanics of sex were being asked to leave the page and enter the ranks of fetishized porn, Ed was keen for literature to preserve the ecstasy, despair, and sublime ridiculousness of two bodies (sometimes more) butting heads. He loved sex the way his younger contemporaries love gratitude or a well-cooked egg for brunch.
And the joys of love and sex mingled with those of conversation and writing in Ed's mind and work. Personally, I enjoy gossip, but Ed elevated it to an art form. Hearing him gossip was nectar. He would lose his breath, transfixed, enamored with the story he was reporting. His virtuosity in analyzing the ever-changing social theater playing out before him was such that his gossip had pre-publication value. People, including yours truly, confided everything to Ed, both because they loved him and because they wanted to hear him giggle, and also because they wanted him to be the roguish interpreter of their lives.
It is customary in such a eulogy to recount the day one met the person who has just passed away, but, to be honest, I don't remember it. I suppose it was 23 years ago, though, because as soon as you published your first book, Ed was there, in all his blazing, giggling glory. Often, beside Ed, over a single malt whisky, there would be a scowling author, oozing pretension, looking down at you from his full height. I knew immediately which of the two writers I wanted to be like.
I remember one drunken night wandering through the private rooms of his apartment while a hell of a party was raging in the common areas, taking pictures (with an old cell phone that was hardly up to the task) of his bedroom and bathroom, perfectly ordinary, oozing normality, and thinking: this is what the home of a great writer must look like. There they are, the lessons of his life and work, on every page of his books, an “artist’s vade mecum” available to all: keep your eyes open, record everything, fall in love with whoever you like, radiate kindness everywhere, even if you have to go and pull it out from the depths of history, your career, and intolerance. Many of my best writer friends have passed away in their fifties; Ed lived his life to the fullest in every way, but his passing nonetheless resonates with a special quality. No one on earth has even a tenth of the crimson he had in his cheeks.
Gary Shteyngart's new novel, Vera, or Faith, will be published this summer.
