Edmund White - Jack Holmes and His Friend

The Observer“The result is a book that is engaging and erotic...” He writes supple (albeit occasionally loose-limbed) prose about an age when gay love was often treated with either contempt or flippancy. The result is a book that is engaging and erotic, yet lacks the exuberance and sensuality of his best work...

The Scotsman“One of White’s finest...” A masterpiece of structure serving plot, as lives fall apart while the fictional pieces fuse together in a dazzling display of scene-shifts and changes of tone, underpinned by wit...

The Independent“A treat lies in store...” "Let's face it", thinks Jack as he frets about a lover's incompatibility, "people are obstacle courses". Often comic, never heartless, White's fiction shows us how to fall over them with grace...

Guardian“Wittily meandering tale...” Jack Holmes and His Friend presents us with more than one novel in its 400 pages: there is an almost philosophical meditation on the nature of romantic and erotic desire; a sharp period portrait...

The Telegraph“A curious novel...” Jack Holmes and His Friend, White’s latest, is a curious novel: when it concentrates on a tight life of arid obsession, it yields rich results. When it moves into the world, the novel dries up...