There’s a lot you could say about Edmund White: He is the paterfamilias of queer literature, he witnessed the Stonewall riots, he literally wrote the book on gay sex.
Not for nothing, his autobiography is called “My Lives.” White, who turned 80 this year, is also a survivor. He has lived with H.I.V.
since 1985, and survived multiple strokes and a heart attack. In keeping with tradition, he intends to make it through the coronavirus pandemic as well. “It’s been kind of lonely,” he said during a Skype interview this month from his apartment in Chelsea, which he hasn’t left more than a handful of times since New York City shut down in March.