White's studies of the gay lifestyle and changing attitudes about homosexuality in America, including the impact of AIDS on the gay community, are important contributions to contemporary social history. Though male homosexuality is the subject of his writing, White offers insights into human behavior in general, according to reviewers.
Nation contributor Carter Wilson comments, "Edmund White is to be envied not only for his productivity, ... but because he is a gifted writer who has staked himself a distinguished claim in the rocky territory called desire."
White told Publishers Weekly that he is "happy to be considered a gay writer," even though that classification has resulted in some difficulties. "Since gay people have very little political representation, we have no gay spokespeople," he said. "What happens is that there is an enormous pressure placed on gay novelists because they are virtually the only spokespeople. The problem is that the novelist's first obligation is to be true to his own vision, not to be some sort of common denominator of public relations man to all gay people.... Everything is read as though it's a sort of allegory about the political dimensions of homosexuality as a general topic, rather than as a specific story about a specific person.
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