The three narratives of [The Twyborn Affair] take place years and distances apart. Only inference, imagination, and Eddie's memories connect them. Yet they cling together with the intense reality—and counterbalancing romanticism—that authentic literature always asserts. In a précis White's novel is incredible. In total it's as believable as a nervous breakdown: a dazzlingly handsome, emotionally fractured young/middle-aged man does live as man/woman in The Twyborn—twice born?—Affair.

Patrick White breaks down disbelief. His characters conduct their lives and animate their emotions with our own confusions. [The novel is plainly] autobiographical, at least in part…. There may be something urgent about his extra-literary insights into homosexual behavior. But "love can never be conveyed except by the wrong gestures" and "anything wholly true—certainly in friendship—comes … from the woman in a man and the man in a woman" suggest his ambiguity. The essence...