When the narrator of White's poised yet scalding autobiographical novel first embarks on his sexual odyssey, it is the 1950s, and America is "a big gray country of families on drowsy holiday." That country has no room for a scholarly teenager with guilty but insatiable stirrings toward other men. Moving from a Midwestern college to the Stonewall Tavern on the night of the first gay uprising--and populated by eloquent queens, butch poseurs, and a fearfully incompetent shrink--The Beautiful Room is Empty conflates the acts of coming out and coming of age.
"With intelligence, candor, humor--and anger--White explores the most insidious aspects of oppression.... An impressive novel."--Washington Post book World
- ISBN10 0330304372
- ISBN13 9780330304375
- Publish Date 18 November 1988 (first published 8 January 1988)
- Publish Status Unknown
- Out of Print 12 November 2003
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Pan Macmillan
- Imprint Picador
- Edition New edition
- Format Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
- Pages 192
- Language English