Edmund White's seventh novel begins as a gossipy comedy of manners,
then carries the reader over the edge of a terrible abyss. In this
masterfully
written story, Austin, a forty-something American furniture scholar,
meets
Julien, a young married Frenchman, at the gym. Austin is intrigued
not only by Julien's looks and his interest in him, but in the young
man's
mysterious past. Julien hints at his noble origins and sketches a
minimal
portrait of his marriage to a woman he met while studying architecture
in
Addis Ababa.
Julien's past is never really made explicit, though, and Austin
just chalks it up to European mores.
Throughout the novel, White plays on Jamesian themes of culture clash,
highlighting the tension between Austin's fixed ideas about sexual
identity and Julien's more fluid ones. Eventually, Julien
divorces his wife and he and Austin share a life of swank parties and
expensive vacations. But in the second half of the novel, things start
to
unravel when Julien is diagnosed with AIDS.
In a vain attempt to outrun mortality, Austin and Julien travel in
ever-widening circles: New England, Montreal, Key West, Venice. Austin
cares
for Julien as best he can, but Julien is a difficult and temperamental
lover, and his illness is a great challenge to Austin. Worn down, his
body revolting against itself, Julien musters his
last words to Austin as his lover tries to clean him. "Je te deteste,"
he
says. I hate you.
White's novels always appear easy. In The Married
Man, the pages bristle with powerful and compassionate language that
conjures up the illusion of comfort. Before long, though, the reader is
enmeshed in a complex emotional fabric. The Married Man is a
suspenseful
and engaging fiction, packed with important moral ideas. One leaves this
beautiful and terrifying love story much as its American protagonist
does:
exhausted, alive, and maybe even a little enlightened.
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