The Farewell Symphony

Auth: Edmund White
Pub: Penguin
This is a rather difficult review. The author claims to have had sex with over a thousand men. My worry is – how did he remember all the details so clearly?
Starting in the 1960Seand coming up to the present day, action takes place in New York, Rome and Paris. Sometimes the author had three different men in a week. Now and again he falls in love and the alliance lasts a few months.
Then AIDs cam along, and one friend after another died. He is now HIV positive. The author writes well. He wrote six books before one was accepted. Two that have been published are ‘A Boys Own Story’ and ‘The Beautiful Room is Empty’, both worth reading.
He has been a teacher of writing in Columbia.
I did get a bit tired of one tumble after another, but I enjoyed the book.
[AELFRIC]