Edmund White, a pioneering author who chronicled gay life and thumbed his own sexual experiences for literature that was at times arrestingly candid, died Tuesday. He was 85.
White's agent, Bill Clegg, told USA TODAY June 4 that the author had died June 3 in his New York City home of natural causes. White was diagnosed with H.I.V. in 1985 and survived multiple strokes and a heart attack, continuing to add ink to his prolific literary catalogue even in his later years.
With a singular voice, White wrote honestly about the queer experience – his 1980 work "States of Desire: Travels in Gay America" becoming a tome for an oppressed but vibrant culture just before the AIDS epidemic befell it.
In "The Joy of Gay Sex: An Intimate Guide for Gay Men to the Pleasures of a Gay Life," White proved himself unafraid of going where few authors at that time had gone before. Collaborating with Dr. Charles Silverstein, he penned a literal how-to for intimate gay life, cracking open a conversation taking place off the page all over America.
Born in 1940, White, a native son of the Midwest, eventually sojourned to New York City, where he sharpened his pen and trained a keen eye on a place that was becoming the center of gay life in the U.S.
