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A Boy's Own Story

Format: Paperback

Condition: Poor Condition — £1.00
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Our conditions mean the following:

  • New - a brand new book
  • Almost New - appears new but is actually secondhand.
  • Very Good - only minor imperfections such as minor scuffs to edge or cover or a price written in pencil or shop sticker.
  • Standard Secondhand - Clearly been read before, but not too bad. We do not recommend these for gifting. Spines usually creased. Could also include creases or folds to cover, some writing such as in the cover or elsewhere, underlining or highlighting, but might not do. Possibly some stains or marks. Similar in general to books in any secondhand shop or charity shop.
  • Poor Condition - Usually this will have a specific problem such as writing inside, water damage, missing dust jacket, heavy staining, large creases or cuts. These are readable copies but not nice ones. On other websites this condition is called 'Acceptable' or 'Fair' , but we want to be more honest.
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‘Edmund White has crossed The Catcher in the Rye with De Profundis, J. D. Salinger with Oscar Wilde, to create an extraordinary novel. It is a clear and sinister pool in which goldfish and piranhas both swim. The subject of A Boy’s Own Story is less a particular boy than the bodies and souls of American men; the teachers and masters; the lovers, brothers, hustlers and friends; the flawed fathers who would be kings to their own sons who should be princes’ New York Times Review

‘A breathtaking evocation of a young boy growing up in the fifties in an American town . . . The book’s extraordinary power lies in the tension between the obsessive longing and then moments of denial, the attempts to transcend or avoid the inescapable fact of the boy’s sexuality . . . There have been many good novels of adolescence; this one surpasses them all’ Jeremy Seabrook, New Society

‘The boy’s self-portrait shines with authenticity, he is an extraordinary but plausible mixture of sweetness and deviousness . . . Add to this the fact that White’s prose is marvellously sensual while his eye is sharply satiric and you have something of the flavour of an outstanding text which should appeal to a wide audience. The book goes beyond its homosexual theme to say something about the whole process of growing up’ Robert Nye, Guardian

Author: Edmund White (all their books in stock)
Format: Paperback
Published: 1983
Pages: 217
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 9780330281515

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Our conditions mean the following:

  • New - a brand new book
  • Almost New - appears new but is actually secondhand.
  • Very Good - only minor imperfections such as minor scuffs to edge or cover or a price written in pencil or shop sticker.
  • Standard Secondhand - Clearly been read before, but not too bad. We do not recommend these for gifting. Spines usually creased. Could also include creases or folds to cover, some writing such as in the cover or elsewhere, underlining or highlighting, but might not do. Possibly some stains or marks. Similar in general to books in any secondhand shop or charity shop.
  • Poor Condition - Usually this will have a specific problem such as writing inside, water damage, missing dust jacket, heavy staining, large creases or cuts. These are readable copies but not nice ones. On other websites this condition is called 'Acceptable' or 'Fair' , but we want to be more honest.
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