The Humble Lover
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A wildly hilarious and irreverent novel about a rich octogenarian and the young ballerino he covets-Edmund White at his funniest and most unrestrained.
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 men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the young, enchanting star. Messy entanglements and fierce rivalries ensue, and the result is an unforgettable, outrageous tragicomedy that explores the many layers of love and sexual desire as only Edmund White can.
About this Author
Edmund White (1940-2025) authored more than thirty works of fiction, memoir, and nonfiction, including the novels A Boy's Own Story, Our Young Man, and The Humble Lover; the memoirs City Boy, Inside a Pearl, and The Unpunished Vice; The Flâneur, a tour through Paris; the literary biographies Genet and Rimbaud; and many more. His most recent work, the sexual autobiography The Loves of My Life, was a New York Times Editors' Choice. He received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.
Reviews
"White continues his legacy as a pioneer of queer literature with this mesmerizingly erotic tragicomedy." --Buzzfeed
"The work of Edmund White stands as an unignorable achievement in the past half century of American literature. It is astonishing to see him, in his ninth decade, after more than a dozen novels, writing with such daring and abandon, with the true artist's bracing, vivifying disregard for the stifling canons of good taste. He is one of our living treasures, an inspiration, and a wonder." --Garth Greenwell, author of CLEANNESS and WHAT BELONGS TO YOU
"Love may be universal, but no one writes about love quite like Edmund White. The veteran author returns with an outrageous, tender novel that complicates contemporary ideas of what traditional, 'appropriate' desires and relationships look like . . . this novel is as mischievous as it is thought-provoking. It is Edmund White at his very best." --BookPage, Starred Review
"Studded with endless witticisms and brilliant social comedy, this book is likely the most clever and creative pornographic novel ever written by an octogenarian . . . Everything you love about White, explicit sex, French champagne, and insouciant murder included." --Kirkus Reviews
"Hot, sexual, desirous, and disastrously doomed . . . there is a cinematic plot, a narrative arc, and a scandalous conclusion driving this showstopper, but White's uniquely freaky unrestrained creativity is the main reason to buy a front row seat." --Bay Area Reporter
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