GLR September-October 2025

M Y FAVORITE ED WHITE STORY took place in Yale’s beautiful Beinecke Library, where I was doing research for a book on the Violet Quill. Yale had pur chased Ed’s papers, and I was the first person to open the boxes in which he had unceremoniously dumped the contents of his drawers; the cartons were filled with kibble and dog treats, nap kins, matchbooks with phone numbers hurriedly scribbled in side, and other detritus of a busy life. When I lifted one stack of papers, a photograph of Ed—not just naked but with a full erec tion—floated off the top and across the reading room. I tried to grab it, but the glossy sailed above the heads of the academics and toward the window. When I finally got hold of the photo, I expected to see everyone looking up at me angry and shocked, but no one noticed the frenzied pirouette to reclaim the porno graphic image. The tale says more about scholars than it does about the 9x12 glossy of Ed’s attractive naked body. Still, it seems only proper that he should appear improperly undressed in so hallowed a place. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say that Ed and I had wonderful sex on multiple occasions. Nothing special given his estimated 3,000 partners.) It has always been the louche parts of Ed’s work that I’ve thought deserved notice—his willingness not just to reveal what others would deem abject, but to thrust the abject their way. The last book White published during his life, The Loves of My Life, is subtitled A Sex Memoir , not a subject that an eminent man of letters in his eighties is supposed to write about: the book is filled with explicit sex. One notable example occurs after a sex ual escapade with Stan Redfern, a friend from college who vis ited White days before his death. While still young, they vacationed in Puerto Rico, where they picked up two locals who “fucked us in the same room on twin beds without sheets while laughing and chatting”: “I shit out my partner’s semen (which we call his ‘babies’). I was pleased to see how copious it/they were. It wasn’t part of our intimacy repertoire for me to ask Stan how much sperm he’d harvested.” The brief passage plays with the notion of what is said and left unsaid in their “intimacy repertoire.” As a result of the lan guage rules, White can speak of the copiousness of his partner’s ejaculation, while he cannot question Redfern about the con sistency of his bowel movement. The delicacy of the language is mirrored in White’s uncertainty whether he should refer to jism in the singular or plural. Sex is not at the center of this pas sage; it is semen and shit , which regresses to the childlike ref erence to sperm as “babies.” The passage ends with harvested , a turn toward the pastoral. So, what begins as lines out of William Burroughs or John Rechy turns into child’s play that ends with a suave gesture toward The Shepheardes Calender of that other Edmund, Edmund Spenser. Or perhaps we are meant to picture that very American scene—two innocents being corn holed in a hayloft above an International Harvester. What other American writer can in the space of three sen tences evoke four very different cultural settings through the magic of his diction or can make us so fully aware of language as anthropological artifact that causes both wincing and laugh D AVID B ERGMAN Ed’s ‘Intimacy Repertoire’

Edmund White in 2002. Photo by Dimitris Yeros.

lived there, married to an American soldier. Charles Henri Ford visited us regularly because the wife used to type up his manu scripts. One day, while he was talking to the American soldier, the man said: ‘Well, I threw out all my old letters.’And Charles said: ‘You must never throw them out—you could sell them to Harvard for millions of dollars!’” And Edmund burst out laugh ing at our friend’s ironic advice. The poet James Merrill and the painter John Craxton also lived in Chania. They were all close. “Craxton used to ride back and forth from London on his motorcycle,” Edmund said, both impressed and slightly alarmed. And then, dropping his voice conspiratorially again: “You know, my friend James Merrill, he knew many of those Athens palace guards.” As time went on, I asked if I could take his picture to capture a few more cherished memories. He gladly agreed. But when I picked up my camera for our final meeting, a kind of melan choly came over me. I didn’t feel capable of capturing anything truly evocative. Still, I took a few photos—ones that may some day have value, but only as documents. A week later, when Michael told me of Edmund’s sudden death, I was overwhelmed by shock and grief. He was one of the last of a remarkable era—one that had everything: love, free dom, revolution, companionship, endless parties, romance, pleasure ... and many deaths too, which made some people stronger. It was also an age of great writers, artists, and thinkers. I count myself among the lucky ones who lived through that time—and had the chance to know people such as Edmund. ______________________________________________________________________________ Dimitris Yeros is an Athens-based artist and photographer whose works have been shown at dozens of solo exhibitions around the world. &BOOKLOVERS READERS ATTENTION Tim’s Used Books 242 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA timsusedfilms@gmail.com | 508-487-0005 | Open year-round. Are TIM’S USED BOOKS of Provincetown has been traveling throughout the Northeast since 1991, buying book collections, large and small. Scholarly, gay interest, the arts—all genres. Immediate payment and removal.

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