Edmund White's Latest

On a long, trans-Pacific flight I had time to read Edmund White's memoir of his New York (i.e., Manhattan, i.e., Manhattan below 14th Street) life in the 1960s and 1970s, City Boy. It's the familiar tale of someone with a miserable boyhood endured in the Midwest who finds fulfillment (in White's case, literally) in the big, anonymous city (he tried SF, it wasn't big enough or anonymous enough). Boring. He apparently had sex with everyone, but it didn't make him very happy. Really boring. The memoir, like his other books, is a melancholy, which usually appeals to me (being a melancholic myself), but this was relentless. I'm glad he stopped drinking, and hasn't died of HIV/AIDS. But this guy needs to fall in love-- really fall in love, and stop star-fucking. It's not too late, Ed. Just get over yourself.