VIP
Lounge
Edmund White
by Lawrence Ferber
Award-winning author, critic, and scholar Edmund White
continues to make his mark in both literary and LGBT history.
His semi-autobiographical 1982 novel, A Boy’s Own
Story, and 1977’s The Joy of Gay Sex entail 20th-century
gay classics. His diverse, acclaimed body of work also
includes fiction (2000’s The Married Man, and his
personal favorite, 2007’s Hotel de Dream), biographies
(of Proust, Genet, and, most recently, Rimbaud), and further
autobiographical tomes: 2009’s City Boy recounts
his years in 1960–70s New York City. Born in Cincinnati,
Ohio, White, who serves as a Professor of Creative Writing
at Princeton University’s Lewis Center For The Arts,
lives in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood with his
partner of 15 years, Michael Carroll. Candid about all
aspects of life, from his HIV-positive status (he co-founded
the Gay Men’s Health Crisis) to his open relationship
and what continues to be a robust sex life at age 70,
White is a gracious host, serving up espresso alongside
his wit and well-traveled anecdotes.
Where should a writer go to concentrate
and get work done?
I like to go to writers’ colonies. There’s
a wonderful one outside Florence, Italy called Santa
Maddalena. I like to go to Maine, we rent a house in
August, it’s miles from anything else, and we don’t
cultivate friends. It’s boring, which is very good
for writers. We used to go to Provence and people would
say, “Oh you must look up our friend…”
and we would say, “Are you kidding? Never! We don’t
want to know or see anybody.” We’re very antisocial
when we go to those places.
You can own any hotel room or vacation
property in the world—which would it be?
In Morocco there’s one called the La Gazelle
D’Or, which is outside a town called Taroudant,
a walled city. It’s [like] the middle ages, nothing
has changed, filled with friendly people and almost
no tourists. La Gazelle is a very luxurious, French-owned
hotel where you have your own little house in the woods
with a fantastic swimming pool, fantastic meals, and
it’s very luxurious and expensive.
You lived in Paris for many years,
and have written about France and several of its literary
figures. How does France most defy or live up to its
stereotypes?
I think the French are, in a way, the friendliest
people on earth, and that’s not what most people
think about them because they’re quite unfriendly
to total strangers. There’s no social contract
between two strangers in France and they’ve even
had to pass laws called “Non-Assistance to A Person
in Danger” so, for instance, if you see someone
being robbed, and you don’t come to their aid,
you can be legally penalized. They have to legislate
that. So they aren’t smiling and welcoming to total
strangers, but if you have a proper introduction, pursue
a relationship over a period of time, and you’re
trustworthy, loyal, and interesting, you will end up
with the most dedicated, constant friends of your life
that will make American friendships look completely
trivial by comparison.
Let’s pretend you’re New
York’s spokesperson—what is one thing we absolutely
must see or do while we’re there?
Walk up and down The High Line Park. It’s
a wonderful park and an idea borrowed, I might add,
from Paris. They have a wonderful High Line that was
an old train track behind where the Bastille Opera House
is now. It’s been around for 12 years, maybe. I
love a [NYC] restaurant called La Lunchonette on
18th Street and 10th Avenue. It looks like absolutely
nothing, but it has traditional French food like you
get in France. It’s not expensive. Two can eat
for eighty dollars if they don’t drink a lot.
You’re quite open about having
a pretty active sex life, both then and now. What is
a fabulous vacation spot for those who would also like
a little action?
I think Provincetown is still a very good bet.
There are so many gay people there and you’re likely
to have a guesthouse room so you can take people there,
or you can go out on the dunes and have sex. And it’s
not so much an A-List place like the Hamptons. If you’re
not a 35-year-old, blonde, blue-eyed, worked-out, multi-millionaire
lawyer you don’t really feel right in the Hamptons,
whereas I think Provincetown is much more democratic.
What would you offer as a tip for
HIV-positive travelers?
Make sure you have all your meds with you to last
the whole trip, and take enough for four days in your
carry-on, because your [checked] bag will be lost. If
you’re without meds for four days that’s serious,
so have enough doses to carry over until your bag is
found. I just put them in little Ziploc bags. In both
France and Italy I’ve tried to get a doctor to
write me a prescription for Norvir, or whatever pills
I’m taking, and they can’t do it except through
a hospital, which means you have to spend a day at the
hospital.
What is one travel resource you would
love our readers to know about if they don’t already?
SabbaticalHomes.com. The thing about Europeans
in general is they don’t like to rent out their
own houses for short periods of time or ever. But academics
do, and they oftentimes want to swap flats. I’ve
had Italian philosophers come and stay here for three
months, and my partner and I went to Rome and stayed
in their place. Ordinary working people can’t go
away that long but academics can, and so SabbaticalHomes.com
is quite a good thing.
[Published:
June, 2010]
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