Children satisfy many different needs when they read. They have no obligation to be noble, nor to embody the virtues that adults would like to project upon them. Some children who read are positively alarming. More power to them. They might grow up to be great writers, or they might never grow up at all. This excerpt is from Chapter 8 of Edmund White’s memoir, The Unpunished Vice (2018), which is available in most formats from Bloomsbury Publishing. [All excisions from the original published chapter are marked with a triple asterisk (* * *).]
8 August, 2022
