The Beautiful Room is Empty
(1988)
This sequel to A Boy’s Own Story chronicles the late adolescence and early adulthood of the unnamed narrator. Moving from the Midwest to New York, he leads a life that revolves around the pursuit of sexual obsession and his burgeoning intellectual relationships: with Maria, a painter and political activist whose bohemianism shields an ambiguous sexuality; and Lou, addict, advertising copywriter, and compelling guru of sensuality. Student life, journalism, literature, art, the oppression of psychoanalysis, and the birth of gay liberation all contribute to this relentlessly paced and poetically imagined testament to an epoch of change.
