Edmund White

A tale inspired by the final days of literary master Stephen Crane is set in the underworld of turn-of-the-century New York and follows his death-bed dictation of his final novel, "The Painted Boy," while biding farewell to a long-time love

"Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other...

The story of White's years in 1970s New York, bouncing from intellectual encounters with Susan Sontag and Harold Brodkey to his erotic entanglements downtown to the city's burgeoning gay scene of artists and writers

A writer looks back on a decade of homosexual affairs on both sides of the Atlantic. In the process he describes the gay man's dilemma, on the one hand he wants the right to be different, on the other he wants to be accepted as normal.