The Beautiful Room is Empty

Title: The Beautiful Room is Empty

Author: Edmund White

Pages: 240

Genre: Fiction

Grade: B

Synopsis: This novel is a coming of age book about a gay young man who grows up in Chicago before moving to New York.  The US in the 50's & 60's has not yet come to terms with homosexuality (especially in the midwest) and the author writes often about the therapy sessions focused on helping him to become normal (i.e. heterosexual).

My Review: The book is also known as an autobiographical novel, so it is hard to know how much of the book is true and how much of the book is based on the author's experiences. The narrator writes about cruising in the bathrooms of college and the subway waiting for men to present themselves under the stalls as well as looking for hookups nearly every night.  One of the main things that came to my mind while reading was about the AIDS epidemic that really came to light in the 1980's, but that hit the gay communities the hardest. After so many unprotected encounters with other men, it is not surprising that an STD spread so easily.

Disclaimer: This book does not hold back on the discussion about homosexual activity, although it was never what I would call vulgar.