The Loves of My Life

From the legendary author Edmund White, a stunning, revelatory memoir of a lifetime of gay love and sex.

With his trademark wit, candour and relentlessly perceptive eye, Edmund White, the beloved 85-year-old 'paterfamilias of queer literature' (New York Times) delves unflinchingly into the aspect of his life which has inspired so many of his masterpieces: sex.

Documenting everything from covert fumblings in the repressed American Midwest of the 1950's to the Arcadian gay debauchery of New York in the 1970's; through the terror of HIV and the age of sex on the apps, White has seen - and experienced - it all.

Unyieldingly honest, outrageously raucous and arrestingly touching, The Loves of My Life can but further cement White's unquestionable role at the apex of the gay canon.

Review

Textured and variegated . A writer's memoir and a rumination on craft . White is so clearly in complete control of his powers, switching between coquetry and high seriousness, weaving a rich tapestry of cultural references (Jean Genet to Hello Kitty, Stendhal to Sontag) while carefully deploying his unique ability, as Alan Hollinghurst put it, to "translate libido into style" through metaphor . The book's push against prudishness also contains a subtle call for understanding and compassion - reminders that what has been gained in terms of LGBTQ rights is fragile, and a conviction that a better, bolder future is possible. Anyone can make such an optimistic vision sound appealing; only Edmund White could make it truly seductive -- Ralf Webb ― Guardian

Exhaustively wonderful. An unflinching, romantic and generous climax by a bright star in our literary constellation. The gayest book ever written -- Henry Hoke, author of Open Throat

Intelligent, stylish, entertaining and funny ― TLS

Edmund White died this year aged 85 - but the grand old man of gay literature was banging away on his keyboard (and elsewhere) right up until the end. This "sex memoir" has all the no-holds-barred candour you'd expect of an octogenarian who is too old to care what anyone else thinks. We learn everything - penis size, favoured positions - and meet dozens of the thousands of men he fell in love with . . . A hoot, and surprisingly touching -- Robbie Millen ― The Times/Sunday Times Books of the Year

Melancholy, erratic, wise and often ravishingly beautiful, this is just what you want from a book about sex. It's as messy, risky and emotional as the act itself - an old-age testament that bears witness not just to Ed's legendary frankness, but also to his life-long commitment to finding new ways of writing who we might be, have been and are -- Neil Bartlett, author of Ready to Catch Him Should He Fall

Ecstatic, so funny, tender, very hot - a scintillating romp with a literary lion. Daddy's diary fully delivers, pungent and real, teeming with gasp-worthy disclosures, as illuminating as it is filthy. ― Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Gay Bar

The itch of lust, in most of these encounters, soon turns into swooning poetic ardour . . . the writing in The Loves of My Life is as juicy, ebullient and ecstatic as in his best novels ― Observer

One of the patron saints of queer literature, a new book from Edmund White is always a cause for celebration. The Loves of My Life feels like the culmination of a profound wisdom - wry, hilarious, moving, and brilliantly unreserved. This litany of lovers becomes a sort of community in itself, full of vitality and difference. White is still breaking taboos in the most joyous and virtuoso style -- Seán Hewitt, author of All Down Darkness Wide

It's trousers down from page one . This NSFW addition to a well-sexed body of work does what it says on the tin -- Charles Arrowsmith ― The Times

Philosophical without becoming sententious ... White's sheer overtness sets the book apart ... What makes White and the stories he tells so likeable is his indifference to the judgements of others, in tandem with an acerbic (often merciless) appraisal of himself -- James Cahill ― Spectator

About the Author

Edmund White (1940-2025) authored more than thirty works of fiction, memoir, and nonfiction, including the novels A Boy's Own Story, Our Young Man,and The Humble Lover; the memoirs City Boy, Inside a Pearl, and The Unpunished Vice; The Flâneur, a tour through Paris; the literary biographies Genet and Rimbaud; and many more. His most recent work, the sexual autobiography The Loves of My Life, was a New York Times Editors' Choice. He received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction and the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation.