num_pages: 165
description: It isn't often that a memoirist gets the biographic treatment, but the story of Edmund White's youth was too dramatic to resist. In this bracing true-life tale, Keith Fleming, White's nephew whom he adopted, captures a particularly unusual childhood. Forced to be a confidante to his unhinged mother, terrified and attracted to his imperious father, the teenage White became a Buddhist, a cruiser of hustlers and married men, and an FBI drug informant on his way to ultimate fame as a leading gay literary figure. Drawing on personal knowledge, letters, photographs, and extensive interviews with those closest to "Eddie," Fleming neither exploits his subject nor sugar-coats him. Original Youth is a rich portrait of a complex subject and a "wild child" who managed to survive and flourish against all odds.
language: English
title: Original Youth: The Real Story of Edmund White's Boyhood
titlecomplete: Original Youth: The Real Story of Edmund White's Boyhood
genres: LGBT, Biography
ratings_count: 13
awards: awardedAt: 1041408000000
name: Lambda Literary Award
category: Biography
publisher: Green Candy Press