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Austin is a middle-aged gay American living in Paris in a elegant apartment, all too aware that he is 20 years older than everyone else at the gym. He has recently split up with his lover, when he meets a younger man, Julien, a good-looking but troubled architect, who claims to be on the verge of divorce. Julien quickly draws Austin into a relationship based on equality rather than game-playing but unfortunately Julien becomes ill at about the same time that Austin learns he is HIV positive. From Paris the two move to the US, and new tensions enter the relationship with Julien, who is fading fast. He dies suddenly during an ill-fated journey to Morocco. Biographer of Genet and Proust, this is White's first novel since the hautning conclusion to his acclaimed autobiographical trilogy, The Farewell Symphony. Here he writes in the third person, but loses none of the warmth and candour that made his autobiographical work so distinctive. The novel is wonderfully readable, with a plot that moves easily from social comedy to romance and finally to tragedy. He writes movingly and sensitively about the widespread effects of AIDS in a novel that is miraculously free of sentiment and politics. (Kirkus UK)
