The Boy with the Thorn in His Side: A Memoir

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The Barnes & Noble Review

In a poignant and touching memoir, author Keith Fleming pays tribute to his famously gay uncle, writer Edmund White, in The Boy with the Thorn in his Side. This stirring coming-of-age tale portrays Fleming's turbulent adolescent years during the seventies as he struggled to survive in a family that epitomized dysfunction. Ironically, as the most stable and normal influence on Fleming's life, White became an unlikely - but never unwilling - hero even as he played in the heightened sexual atmosphere of a 1970's gay Manhattan.

Fleming's story takes a hard look at the stereotypical importance assigned to "family" and examines the intricate and sometimes puzzling miasma of family relationships. The end result is a much-needed reminder that it's the individual that matters, not their position, relationship, or stature. White has told his version of these happenings as well in The Farewell Symphony, the final book in his autobiographical trilogy. But Fleming's portrayal of both White and his own miraculous transformation at White's hands is a beautifully rendered story deserving of its own read.

The issue of White's sexual orientation has significance here for two reasons. First, Fleming's alienation and treatment as an outcast, both from his family and from society in general, closely mirrored the bigotry and judgments so often imposed on his uncle. But Fleming's problems stemmed from a different cause all together. Plagued with a horribly virulent and disfiguringcaseof acne through most of his teen years, he became something of a physical and emotional recluse. The other reason White's lifestyle comes into play is that Fleming's mother's coming out as a lesbian was what prompted the divorce that triggered many of Fleming's problems.

Fleming's story is heartbreakingly sad at times and his treatment from his family - particularly his father and the conniving and manipulative woman he later married - was often appalling. Locked up against his wishes in a series of questionable mental institutions and more or less abandoned by his father, Fleming ran away from home several times. It wasn't until he went to Manhattan to live with his uncle that he finally understood the true meaning of love and experienced something resembling a normal life.

Despite the abuse and neglect Fleming experienced at the hands of his parents, he judiciously avoids any tone of bitterness or resentment. Instead, he reiterates events in a matter-of-fact way that infers no passing of judgment. Ironically, this lack of emotion from Fleming stunningly portrays his utter sense of alienation. The contrast in prose between Fleming's years with his parents and his time with his uncle is a stark one.

For in speaking of Uncle Ed, Fleming shows plenty of emotion, most of it idolizing, appreciative, and respectful. And it's easy to see why. White took his nephew in, fed him, and taught him how to dress. He took him to a high-priced dermatologist to get medical care for his acne. He paid the airfare for Fleming to go and fetch his one-time girlfriend and bring her to Manhattan, and then put the two of them up in an apartment with White paying the rent. All of this on a limited income. In short, Uncle Ed was the only member of Fleming's family capable of providing the care, attention, and unconditional love that the disturbed young man so desperately needed.

It comes as no surprise that Fleming's voice has a fluid, literary quality to it when you consider the influence White had on him. Fleming recalls the many times he and White spent together studying language, literature, and other cultural fineries. His telling of this tale, in a voice that is as astoundingly simple as it is profoundly lyrical, is a most fitting and touching tribute. Uncle Ed is no doubt proud.

—Beth Amos

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In an election year when the political rhetoric about gay marriage, the importance of the nuclear family and the protection of children is running high, this memoir comes as a chilling reminder of how complex--and surprising--family relationships can be. Writing in a plain but honest style, Fleming details the severe traumas of his adolescence related to the divorce of his parents in a middle-class Chicago suburb in 1971. After his mother was repeatedly institutionalized for depression and then came out as a lesbian, Fleming's father sued for custody. Torn apart by his parents' fighting, allegedly physically abused by his father and stepmother and suffering from acute acne, Fleming ran away from home. After he was caught, his father committed him to a snake-pit of a mental hospital and granted its director power-of-attorney over the boy. There, Fleming met and fell in love with Laura, another patient. After a year and a half, his mother finally helped him escape and sent him to live with her brother, the gay writer Edmund White, in New York City. Under White's unconditional love and attention, Fleming was able to flourish--and it is at this point that his memoir becomes deeply absorbing. Having taken on extra work in order to send his nephew to a first-class dermatologist and a prep school, White even paid for an apartment for Fleming when Laura, who had escaped yet a second "correctional" internment, moved to New York. White told his version of this story in his 1997 novel The Farewell Symphony, but Fleming's memoir of family horror and salvation merits its own reading. Agent, Charlotte Sheedy. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

This memoir is sure to be compared to Girl, Interrupted because of its treatment of societal attitudes toward teenagers and mental illness. Fleming writes about the traumas of his childhood, his subsequent experiences in mental hospitals, and his eventual rescue by his uncle, author Edmund White. He writes vividly of his parents' divorce in 1971 when he was in his early teens and of its effects on him. His mother was institutionalized and, after her release, came out as a lesbian. His father, who remarried, made life no easier on him: after Fleming ran away and was caught, his father committed him to a series of mental hospitals. In one, he fell in love with a young girl named Laura, but their relationship ended after a few years. Eventually, his mother obtained his release, and White took him in. Fleming began to heal emotionally as his uncle provided stable guidance and an excellent education. Fleming, a freelance writer, tells his story with humor and compassion, all the while informing the national debate about the definition of a family. Recommended for psychology collections in all libraries.--Ron Ratliff, Emporia P.L., KS Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Goodheart

It offers the rare satisfaction of seeing a memoirist get memoired . . . Even if his memoir lacks [Edmund] White's occasional flying leaps of genius, it is funnier, more vivid, more focused.
—The New York Times Book Review

Jerry Stahl

Rarely has American boyhood been so lushly rendered. By turns beautiful, heartbreaking, hilarious and sexy, The Boy With The Thorn In His Side stands out as an instant classic. Fleming knows how to bend each sentence to demented perfection. This is literature of the highest order: unique in detail, universal in appeal, and never less than brilliant. An honest-to-God best friend of a book.