Edmund White is unarguably the preeminent author of the white gay male subculture. His career coincides almost exactly with the rise of the modern gay movement in the 1960s, and his work documents articulately and vividly the transition from a time when homosexuality was regarded as a sin or a disease, to our own era when gay writing and cultural production has moved front and center. White's works signal and celebrate this transformation. Like many important American novelists working within ethnic traditions, White reveals how a minority perspective can create a more universal interest. That he is one of the first and most prolific writers to do so from a self-conscious and perhaps politicized gay perspective marks him as singularly important.

More than any other contemporary gay male writer, White has achieved a large crossover following among heterosexual readers and critics. His autobiographical novel, A Boy's Own Story...