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Synopsis

From Edmund White The tantalizing, expertly crafted story of a decades-long friendship between two men that charts the sexual revolution from both gay and straight perspectives, from one of our most admired and path-breaking writers.

Jack Holmes is in love. Sadly for him, his feelings are not returned, at least not in the way he would like them to be. It doesn’t look as if there will ever be anyone else he falls for: the other men he takes to bed never last long.

Jack’s friend Will Wright comes from old stock, has aspirations to be a writer and, like Jack, works on the Northern Review. He is shy and lives alone, working on his novel. Jack will introduce Will to the beautiful, brittle young woman he will marry, but is discrete about his own adventures in love – for this is sixties New York, literary and intense, before gay liberation; a concoction of old society, bohemians rich and poor, sleek European immigrants and transplanted Midwesterners. Against this charged backdrop, the different lives of Jack and Will intertwine, and as their loves come and go, they will always be, at the very least, friends.

Edmund White’s startling perceptions of American society are here deployed to dazzling effect, as character after character is delicately and colorfully rendered and one social milieu after another brought vividly to life. White is a connoisseur of the nuances of personality and mood, and here unveils his very human cast in all their radical individuality. With fabulously on target insights, narrative daring and a gifted sense of the rueful rough-and-tumble of life, Jack Holmes and His Friend is a beautifully sculpted exploration of sexuality and sensibility.