Edmund White

Aldwych West, an eighty-year-old modern-day aristocrat living alone in his Manhattan townhouse, is used to having what he wants. And when he sets eyes on August Dupond, a strong, stunningly beautiful soloist in the New York City Ballet, he decides he must have him. Soon they strike up a closeness that falls between the blurry lines of friendship, sponsorship, and love, and August moves in with Aldwych. But eventually August starts bringing home other men, and a formidable woman in Aldwych's circle named Ernestine also takes a deep interest in the young, enchanting star. Messy entanglements and fierce rivalries ensue, and the result is an unforgettable, outrageous tragicomedy that explores the many layers of love and sexual desire as only Edmund White can.

Eighty-five-year-old Edmund White recounts the sixty-plus years of sexual escapades that have inspired his many masterpieces. He explores the sex he had with other closeted boys of the 50s Midwest, with women as a young man trying to be straight, the sex he’s paid for and been paid for, sex during the Stonewall and HIV eras, and in the age of the apps. Through tales of transactional sex, mutual admiration, open relationships, domination, submission, love, and loss, he paints an indelible portrait of queer history in America and abroad in a way only someone who has lived through it can.

Written with White’s signature honesty, irreverence, and wit, The Loves of My Life is the culmination of a legend's life and work, a delightful and moving tour of over seventy years of being unabashedly gay and in love with love in all its forms.