Edmund White

Since I'm covering the Book Festival for ThreeWeeks, I'm reviewing one-off readings. It's hard to know what to say most of the time, or why people would read them, so I probably won't repost all of them, but here's my first...

"I always feel the imagination is greatly overrated". Strange words from a novelist, but Edmund White is more interested in playing with facts than making things up, and it has served him well. Best known for his biographical fiction, and for his portrayal of gay men, White's latest novel 'Hotel de Dream' imagines the last days of American writer Stephen Crane, as Crane dictates a final novel to his wife. We were read an excerpt where Henry James makes a delightful cameo. Also something of a critic, White litters his speech with literary references, yet never talks down to the audience. "As you recall from 'War And Peace'," he says at one point - not exactly, Edmund, but we're glad you think so.

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