I started reading this book two years ago, got about 70 pages in, and paused; picked it up a year ago, read another 70 pages, paused again; picked it up again this summer, and pushed on through. I've never before been so slow to finish a book by White (and this is the tenth I've read). Whatever it is I find irresistible about White's writing, this book does not have in abundance.
It has some amazing chapters, to be sure. It's arranged by topics (e.g., "My Shrinks," "My Women," "My Blonds") rather than by chronology, and the chapters devoted to topics that White has not so thoroughly mined in his fiction -- "My Master," "My Europe," "My Genet" -- are echt White. Even so, I found myself wishing he had used some of this material for fiction -- his astonishing portrait of Foucault, for instance.
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