The Beautiful Room Is Empty Summary
Edmund White

The Beautiful Room Is Empty Summary

This novel is the story of a young gay man's coming-of-age in 1950's and 60's America, and in particular of his struggles to both suppress his sexual orientation and establish his career as a writer. While vividly detailing the specific circumstances and manifestations of that struggle, the narrative's central thematic concerns are universal such as the coming of age, the search for self-identity in the face of powerful societal pressure to conform, and the experience of being an outsider.

The first-person narrator begins his story with descriptions of his life at an upper middle class preparatory school and how he escaped its rules and constrictions, portrayed as extensions of those imposed by American society in general and his mid-Western parents in particular, to explore life as seen and lived by students at the art college across the way. He befriends several of its students, including the outspoken and bisexual... View more of the The Beautiful Room Is Empty Summary