adobar 18, 2002 »
BOOKS
Sketches of memory
A B oy I O nce K new : W hat a T eacher
L earned from H er S tudent
by Elizabeth Stone. Algonquin Books, 2002;
$19.95 hardcover.
The devastation of AIDS
is forefront in effective memoirs
It’s that personality that shines
through in Our Paris: Sketches from
Memory. Rereleased after its original
publication in 1994, this brief series of
conversationally but beautifully written
anecdotes covers White’s rather event
ful experiences in the French capital,
his adopted hometown for 16 years.
The author’s literary sketches are
Edmund White and Hubert Sorin’s literary and literal
accompanied by penciled ones by his
sketches make for touching memoir in Our P aris
partner, Hubert Sorin, who
was suffering from AIDS
O ur P aris : S ketches from M emory
throughout the book’s cre
by Edmund White. Ecco Press, 2002;
ation and died shortly after
$1 9.95 hardcover.
it was completed. The cir
cumstances—
which must
dmund White is a singularly spe
surely have been painful and
cial writer. He may he, along with
difficult— are, however,
the equally compulsory hut more
belied by the book’s exuber
I cerebrally detached Gore Vidal,
ant, celebratory tone.
the most distinguished gay male liter
Our Paris is full of
ary figure writing today.
dropped names and juicy,
Whites work is radiant, alive and
gossipy stories. W hite s
intellectually vihrant, and acclaim has
little black book apparently
followed him throughout his slew of pub
contains not only the
lished work beginning in the early 1970s.
names of “big” celebs
(Among other kudos, he’s been made an
(like Tina Turner and the descendants of
officer of the French Order of Arts and Letters.)
Nabokov and Hemingway) but eccentric,
Rut, as attested to by his appealing appearance at
absurd characters such as Pierre Guyotat, a
last year’s Portland Arts and Lectures series, he
long-winded, avant-garde novelist whose
hasn’t let this well-deserved acknowledgment
fame
has thankfully not spread beyond the
prevent him from having a down-to-earth, self-
French border; U .S. jeweler and Barbie doll
effacing, unassuming personality.
justi'i'iflhelp wanted
1
collector Billy Boy; and an amusing assort
ment of French grocers, landladies and
prostitutes.
Sorin’s charming, cartoonish drawings make
a fine complement for the text. Especially
smile-inducing are his humorously exaggerated
depictions of himself, White and
their basset hound, Fred.
The book’s frivolity is tem
pered by W hite’s reflective
introduction and afterword, in
which he speaks more seriously
about Sorin’s disease and his
own. (Though he’s never fallen
ill with A ID S, he was diagnosed
with HIV in 1985.) W hen he
writes of his lover’s expatriate
childhood in Ethiopia, their life
together in Paris and the way
their artistic collaboration
seemed to ease Sorin’s suffering,
it not only clarifies the book’s context, it’s
also incredibly, romantically moving.
Our Paris may be full of fun and glamorous
people and events, but it’s no Year in Provence.
White’s endearing vulnerability and bemuse
ment at his own odd moments of bitchiness
and superficiality make his book read less like a
self-satisfied recounting of inimitably rarified
experience than a generous confidence from a
good friend.
— Christopher M cQuain
O
ne morning a package containing 10 years
of diaries arrives at teacher Elizabeth
Stone’s door. She hasn’t seen nor spoken to
the young writer, Vincent, since he was a stu
dent of hers 25 years before. Yet he has
bequeathed his diaries to her with the request
she create a book from them.
For the next three years, Stone immerses
herself in the diaries (more than
3,500 pages) and in Vincent’s life
as a gay man living in San Francis
co during the height of the AIDS
epidemic. She reads the memoir
page by page, determined to ex
perience Vincent’s day-to-day life
exactly as he did, refusing to skip
ahead, even though she knows the
final inexorable outcome. In the
process, she learns how to connect
with memories of lost loved ones
and how to care for her aging
mother, who is suffering from
Alzheimer’s.
Heartfelt and sincere, A Boy 1 Once Knew is
simple and yet sometimes difficult to read as we
witness and become angry (right along with
Stone) at Vincent’s self-destructive ways,
including heavy drug use and unprotected sex.
Yet despite the terse and often inexpressive
diary entries, Stone reveals the young man’s
humanity and allows it to shine. In the process,
we are reminded that it is never too late to live
and love fully.
— Floyd Sklaver J D
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