This is the first book by White I’ve read. I bought it together with “A Boy’s own story” when I was in London - I found the title intriguing, and I really liked the first passage of the book. And while I can’t honestly say I liked the book, there were great bits every now and then.
“Jack Holmes and his friend” is set in New York in the 60s and 70s, and at the center are Jack and Will. Jack is gay and in love with his straight best friend Will. I liked the way the books explores the different dynamics of each of Jack’s and Will’s relationships, but especially Will’s behavior kept pissing me off. It wasn’t a bad book (I mean, I have read far worse), but I didn’t particularly enjoy reading it and don’t feel like I gained much from having read it. I also found the way the sex was written odd - or rather a bit pretentious, I guess. “Penis” is a horribly unsexy word.

To be quite honest, I liked it, but not as much as I'd hoped. The book is broken up in 3 parts with a third of being a first person account from the character Will's point-of-view. To be honest, I couldn't stand Will so to have to put up with his small-minded misogyny from his point-of-view for the majority of the book...well, I'm simply happy to make it to the end. With Will's character it felt like the author was trying way too hard to make Will way to straight. And besides, with a title like "Jack Holmes and His Friend," I wanted Jack to BE the main character, not a sidekick. I hope White's earlier works will rub me better.

Made it to 60%, but had to drop it. Will is just insufferable.

Edmund White is so easy to read; I always finish his books in a third the time of others. I usually like his characters too, but not so much this time out. What we have are two New Yorkers, one gay and in love with his straight friend. The gay guy does whatever he can to accommodate the straight one in his hedonistic pursuits. Altogether they seem a pretty superficial duo, doing lots of superficial New York things like having tons of lovers, eating at all the right places and knowing all the right people. Name dropping seems a universal NYC game.

This starts out much better than it ends up. Jack Holmes' gay awakening in the sixties is literature mixed with pornography at its finest, complete with ridiculous misapprehensions such as the suggestion that the protagonist was doomed to homosexuality because of his abnormally large penis. It's when we meet Jack Holmes' friend that the novel begins to fall apart, because we eventually shift to Will Wright's perspective full time.

When Will Wright isn't designed Sim games, he's judging gay people as pathetic while failing to acknowledge the failures of his own existence. For almost half of the book we're treated to the dull whine of a man who's unhappy in his marriage, unhappy with his mistress, and unhappy with the only friend he's ever likely to have. Had the book been about Jack the entire time, and had we only known about Will secondhand, this book could have been consistently interesting; why we had to cede the story from the interesting homosexual to the dull pseudo-progressive homophobe-in-denial is a mystery.

Jack Holmes and His Friend becomes a tiresome drone as it progresses, until it finally terminates in two segments of confused and mish-mashed timelines. It would be interesting to know if anyone had ever advanced the theory that homosexual fiction is best read by a heterosexual audience, because here White paints a portrait of homosexuals that few would ever agree with. Everything is presented as fact, as the way "these people" are. But beyond the initial spark of recognition, this reads as a sad descent away from excitement and into an unworthy grave of prejudice.

Edmund White's physical descriptions of his characters are some of the best I've ever read. But the plot just didn't do it for me.

I really loved the characters and everything about this book but the ending just didn't do it justice.

I had to think about this book for a while. It's a really well-written, a decently good character study, but the book's narrative ends too quickly... almost as if the author didn't realize how much he'd written and needed to wrap it up by a certain page length. And I kept wishing there was just a little bit more tension. I like White's style, though, so I'll keep my eyes peeled for more of his work.

Rating: 3.5/5

Don't let my low star rating fool you, this book is very good. Let me explain. White's writing is the kind of delicious prose that makes you feel that you're eating the book rather than reading it. His characters are well-rounded and seem very, very accurate to the time in which they live and the society they are a part of. The only reason I gave it three and a half stars and not higher is just that I personally didn't love it. Don't get me wrong, I did very much enjoy it, but it's just not going to make any of my "favourite books" lists.

But, that said, it is definitely a book that should be read, and it has made me interested to read more of White's novels.