That's everything from Edmund
Many thanks to Edmund for joining us today – his latest book is Our Young Man, out now in paperback.
JohnnybBaker asks:
When you’re stepping into a certain world as a writer – for example the modelling world featured in Our Young Man – how do you choose to balance research with speculation or assumption?
'Americans are psychological exhibitionists'
discript asks:
Any writer exposes themselves and can, to some extent, hide behind the cloak of fiction. Your writing is so honest that it seems very courageous – for example, in your book My Lives. Do you ever feel over-exposed or vulnerable, laying yourself open for attack or abuse? Have you ever had cause to regret such total self-exposure?
Guardian contributor To an American that seems a very English question. Americans are psychological exhibitionists. When I researched Genet, English and French interviewees were very tight-jawed and need to be convinced, whereas Americans would spill their guts on the phone.
Updated
Jai R. Emmett asks:
You’ve written some great biographies, especially Proust & Genet. Do you have any American or British heroes & would you like to write about them?
Guardian contributor Who would you suggest? Genet was unusual for a writer and hence a wonderful subject – he led several different lives, was a political activist, lived among the Palestinians and Black Panthers, wrote poems, plays, essays and five great novels, grew up in a peasant culture, was in prison frequently...
Updated
'The internet enables hypocrisy; someone can pose as a faithful gay partner while meeting other men'
edwardwatson1 asks:
I picked up a copy of The Flâneur and enjoyed it, thank you. On p145: “To be gay and cruise is perhaps an extension of the flâneur’s very essence, or at least its most successful application”. How much of that is lost now sex is found on smartphone apps? I can’t help but think there is something lost that men are now cruising online in their bedrooms rather than physically roaming.
Guardian contributor It’s probably a good deal safer. There was a certain nervous poetry to cruising outdoors in all weather. The internet enables hypocrisy; someone can pose as a faithful gay partner while meeting other men on the “down-low."
'I was such a horny teen'
LeeInChina asks:
You’ve said you had many sexual experiences before you were 16. How has this sexual abuse affected you and what are your feelings towards your abusers now?
Guardian contributor I never felt “abused”. In fact, I instigated almost all of my early experiences, which were often with boys my age. I was such a horny teen but most adults were reluctant to see me again – jail-bait.
markinmanc asks:
When I was (too) young I read your books and Armistead Maupin’s series. They offer very different views and experiences in relation the lives on offer to gay men. Why do you think things changed so much in a short space of time?
Guardian contributor The first volume of Maupin’s series and Nocturnes for the King of Naples both came out in 1977, I believe. West coast-East coast? His characters are much more integrated into a society of eccentrics, straight and gay, than mine, which may correspond to our different experiences.
Updated
whitman100 asks:
Do you think you’d have won the Nobel Prize if you were straight and dealt mostly with heterosexual relations in your work? I do.
Guardian contributor
TixhiiDon asks:
Which of your novels do you like best?
Guardian contributor My favourite is Hotel de Dream – it’s short (which I like), the form feels original, the passions are very strong, historically it seems more or less accurate.
CarlBr0wn asks:
Were you really jealous of your father and sister having a sexual relationship, or was that all just a provocation?
Guardian contributor Yes, I was really jealous, though I now know my poor sister was traumatised.
chris15m asks:
In your autobiographical novels I felt the treatment that you gave the mother was rather ...harsh. She came across as an incredibly pretentious woman with peculiar behaviours. I wasn’t so much struck with her character, but somewhat cruel treatment she receives by the writer.
How do you see the figure of the mother in the identity of the modern gay male nowadays? To me it doesn’t seem to be as much of an issue as in the heights of 60s psychotherapy? Do you think the psychotherapy dished out back then was beneficial compared to how psychologists operate nowadays? Or is it too hard to tell because mainstream culture is now a lot more accepting of homosexuality?
Also, just wanted to ask what you think Marie Claude from Inside a Pearl would make of Macron? Would they care about the age disparity with his wife?
On that note, what are your thoughts about large age gaps between gay men? Is it a natural state of affairs in gay relationships? And how do you think this is perceived by straight people? How do you see this going into the future?
Guardian contributor I’m 25 years older than my partner (which still puts him in his fifties). Since my two strokes and heart attack we’ve had a role reversal; he’s now the “father” taking care of me.
Yes, I was harsh with my mother but she didn’t mind when she was still alive. A French editor said that I was nice and polite in person but “dur” in my writing. Therapists now seem less likely to castigate the mother.
Marie-Claude would have approved of Macron completely, I imagine, and been charmed by the age difference with his wife.
Updated
'Books have a talismanic value – they also serve as advertisements for oneself'
OleksandrOK asks:
Will paper books exist in the future?
Guardian contributor They seem to be on the upswing here, outselling the electronic ones. Books have a talismanic value – they also serve as advertisements for oneself – you flash your Heidegger at a stranger you’re trying to impress.
Diggy99 asks:
Your fiction and criticism have been groundbreaking and frequently pitch perfect, and you’ve helped to provoke important debate about identity, the role of literature and the nature of sexuality and human relations over the past several decades. Anything else you’ve a burning desire to do? And what keeps that fire burning? Oh, and thank you.
Guardian contributor Religion is a complete mystery, and I’m now writing a novel called “A Saint in Texas.” And thank you for your kind words.
Paulhalsall asks:
How did you deal with students who knew your sexual history?
Guardian contributor The subject seldom came up, though I made a point of mentioning it. A few of my students in recent years have been lesbians or gay men and have written about it. Others felt free to talk about their own problems and orientations. I taught one exhilarating class in writing autobiography in which a Korean student came out as a lesbian, a Muslim said she’d been married off by her father at age 12, a Mexican guy confessed how much in love he was with his wife, etc.
DCulp03 asks:
1) How do you think Paris has changed since your years living there - and do you think it’s been for the better? 2) What’s your favourite contemporary novel about the gay experience?
Guardian contributor It’s a bit grittier, because of the failing economy and the terrorist menace. But it will always be a vibrant cultural capital, although Berlin and Madrid have eclipsed it as gay hot-spots.
Alan Hollinghurst is my favourite gay writer; The Folding Star is my favourite novel.
SavannahLaMar asks:
Your memoirs depict a vibrant scene of sexual and creative freedom in New York - do gentrification, the internet and increased mainstream acceptance of homosexuality prevent the emergence of a similar scene today, or is that just sentimental guff?
Guardian contributor I imagine the first people to take up a daring theme (Frank O’Hara, Mapplethorpe) always feel the excitement of innovation. In New York now the trans community (and writers) seem to be the “happening” thing.
Edmund White is answering your questions
Edmund is logged in and answering your questions live. First up, this from CarlBr0wn:
You wrote The Joy of Gay Sex – what would you add to a 2017 edition?
In this interview (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2012/jan/06/edmund-white-life-in-writing) you said you had female lovers – what did you learn from them, be it sexual or personal?
Guardian contributor There was a more recent update by Charles Silverstein and Felice Picano, which included information about Aids (which hadn’t been isolated and diagnosed in the 1970s when we wrote the original version).
My experience with women I suppose made me gentler, more giving (when the occasion called).
Updated
Post your questions for Edmund White
Edmund White is a legend of American letters. He has written 13 novels that wittily explore the terrain of love and sex, and has also covered the same ground in non-fiction works, such as The Joy of Gay Sex.
White had slept with 500 men by the time he was 16, and his professional life has been no less eventful, marked as it is by feuds with the likes of Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag. Now relatively settled with a partner and a Princeton teaching post, he has also weathered two strokes and an HIV diagnosis.
His latest book is Our Young Man and, as it is published in paperback, White joins us to answer your questions about anything in his life and career. The live webchat begins at 3pm BST (10am ET), on Monday 15 May – post your questions in the comments below.
Updated
You must be a writer to ask that question. Very astute. I interviewed several models, read several fashion memoirs, quizzed friends in the business. I freelanced for Vogue for many years. As a journalist I interviewed a handful of couturiers. But the degree of speculation was very high – I was fashioning a sort of fairy tale, or an allegory about physical beauty in the gay world.