If there were a truth-in-packaging law for books, Edmund White's "States of Desire" would violate it. For he subtitles his book "Travels in Gay America" but rarely mentions lesbians, or settled homosexual couples, or homosexuals who are as interested in their work as in sex, or those who help one another kick drugs and booze rather than abuse them. Instead, he devotes most of his 336 pages to a journey through promiscuous, all-male America—a desolate place to live.

Using a conventional picaresque structure, Mr. White wanders from city to city, but he does not display the kind of literary gifts that would allow him to create a memorable account of the voyage. Travel writers have a special job: to escort their less venturesome readers through unfamiliar physical or psychological terrain. (p. 12)

However, Mr. White … is an inadequate guide. Though his book is partly autobiographical, he never tries to...