Advanced
Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.
Title details for Jack Holmes and His Friend by Edmund White - Available

Jack Holmes and His Friend

A Novel

by Edmund White
ebook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Read a sample Read a sample
1 of 1 copy available
Many straight men and gay men are best friends, but if the phenomenon is an urban commonplace it has never been treated before as the focus of a major novel.
Jack Holmes is in love, but the man he loves never shares his bed. The other men Jack sleeps with never last long and he dallies with several women. He sees a shrink and practices extreme discretion about his gay adventures since the book begins in the 1960s, before gay liberation, and ends after the advent of AIDS in the 1980s. Jack's friend, Will Wright, comes from old stock, has aspirations to be a writer, and like Jack works on the Northern Review, a staid cultural quarterly. Will is shy and lonely-and Jack introduces him to the beautiful, brittle young woman he will marry. Over the years Will discovers his sensuality and almost destroys his marriage in doing so. Towards the end of the 1970s Jack's and Will's lives merge as they both become accomplished libertines.
Jack Holmes and his Friend deploys Edmund White's wonderful perceptions of American society to dazzling effect, as character after character is delicately and colourfully rendered and one social milieu after another glows in the reader's mind. He is a connoisseur of the nuances of personality and mood, and here unveils his very human cast in all their radical individuality. New York itself is a principle character with its old society and its bohemians rich and poor, with its sleek European immigrants and its rough-and-tumble transplanted Midwesterners. With narrative daring and a gifted sense of the rueful submerged drama of life, the novel is a beautifully sculpted exploration of sexuality and sensibility.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 24, 2012

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781608197248

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781608197248
      • File size: 2131 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 23, 2012
      In his latest novel, National Book Critics Circle award winner White (Genet: A Life) presents Jack Holmes, an unambitious editorial assistant at a cultural journal and Midwestern WASP who is initially conflicted by homosexuality and an unrequited fascination with co-worker Will Wright, a Catholic blueblood and aspiring novelist. White leaves little room to empathize with either character as they separately wind through frank sexual encounters during the â60s and â70s; their ambivalent relationship, which is eventually marked by collusion over adultery, emerges as one of self-centered though occasionally tender intentions. A plot that glosses over several intervening years to narrate from Willâs perspective in the second part and later returns to Jack in the third culminates in a mention of GRID (a protonym for AIDS)âa moment that serves more as a device to lead both men out of their âlibertineâ behavior within the span of a few sentences than as an historic, serious event worthy of reflectionâbest-suited for fans of Whiteâs previous work, as well as readers intrigued by complex friendships.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

Loading