Edmund White, essayist, playwright, novelist and chronicler of gay life, has died aged 85, having suffered from HIV since 1984. He once said of his generation: “Gay fiction before that, Gore Vidal and Truman Capote, was written for straight readers. We had a gay readership in mind, and that made all the difference.” For several years he lived in France and went on to write admired biographies of Jean Genet – which won White a Pulitzer prize – as well as Marcel Proust and Arthur Rimbaud.
He estimated he slept with three men a week for 20 years; in 1970s New York, he wrote: “I thought it was quite normal to take a break from writing at two in the morning, saunter down to the piers, and have sex with 20 men in a truck. When I wrote that I’d had sex over the years with 3,000 men, one of my contemporaries asked pityingly: ‘Why so few?’”
He was born 13 January 1940 5.11pm Cincinnati, with an engineer/entrepreneur father and child psychologist mother who divorced when he was seven. He came out as gay to himself at 12. His partner and husband of 30 years in an open relationship Michael Carroll is also a writer.
White had a Capricorn Sun in his 7th house of close partnerships in an Earth Grand Trine to Uranus in his 11th trine Neptune in his 3rd making him a hard-worker and builder in life, keen on comfort and perhaps inclined to over gratify his physical appetites. He had a lucky, successful and high vitality Jupiter Mars conjunction in Aries conjunct his Midheaven giving him drive, ambition and motivation in his career. He also had Saturn in self-reliant Aries conjunct his South Node sextile Venus in Aquarius in his 8th house inconjunct Neptune. Such a Neptune can be emotionally disorganized, escapist, tending to live in a bubble of privacy and weighed down by feelings of unworthiness. Though ultimately it would give him healing as well as creative abilities. He was present at the Stonewall riots and the start of the gay moment and undoubtedly did a great deal of good in helping a marginalised community including gay writers.
His Pisces Moon in his communicative 9th was sparsely aspected being only sextile Mercury and widely sextile Uranus.
His Chiron was conjunct his Cancer Ascendant and opposition his Sun giving him problems early on forming a strong sense of identity; though for some as a consequence it can become pioneering.
Jean Genet about whom he wrote a monumental biography was a French novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, and political activist, the son of a prostitute who became a vagabond and petty criminal, but later after spells in the Foreign Legion and prison he became a writer and playwright. Acclaimed by Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso, he escaped a mandatory prison sentence for repeat offences. His writings were controversial for their explicit and provocative portrayal of homosexuality and criminality. His aim was to subvert traditional moral values and celebrate a beauty in evil.
Latterly he became a political activist drawing attention to the living conditions of immigrants in France, protesting police brutality against Algerians, expressed solidarity for Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof in the Red Army Faction, was involved with the Black Panthers in the US and the Palestinian cause, having been in Beirut during the Sabra Chatila Camp massacres.
Born 19 December 1910 7.45 pm Paris France, he had an audience-attracting 5th house Sagittarius Sun conjunct Venus in Capricorn, which was opposition Pluto and trine Saturn in self-reliant Aries on his Midheaven, adding a controlling and tough dimension to his temperament.
His Mars in intense, all-or-nothing Scorpio was sextile Uranus inconjunct Pluto for a hint of the darkness in his outlook and obsessions. It gave him an extremist streak, a tendency to be overly forceful but also an ability to bring penetrating insights to bear that could be valuable in changing social values.
His Uranus was in a high-wire, can-be-fanatical opposition to Neptune square his Midheaven and widely square his Saturn.
His saving grace was Jupiter in his 4th pointing to his supportive adoptive family though it did not keep him out of trouble. It squared onto a Leo Moon in his Ascendant. A complex personality, driven by an urge to shock.
The post Edmund White – a chronicler of gay life + Genet first appeared on Astroinform with Marjorie Orr – Star4cast.
