Rating: 
Summary: A backseat rider's view of Edmund White
Review: "Just who is Keith Fleming and why is he tryng to slay me" might be a good subtitle for this short memoir. Frankly I bought the book because of my great admiration for Edmund White (the Uncle Ed of Keith's minor autobiography) and in the end all reasons for liking the book reflect back to that initial response. Yes, this is the life of an unfortunate, acneiform teenage product of yet another dysfunctional family unit whose saving grace is his finding solace with his brilliant writer uncle in New York. Keith Fleming writes well, has some pages when his prose actually begins to sing, but aside from his "growing up" experience with Edmund White, his story - full of despair and cruel circumstances -hardly registers as a precis for a book. But all criticism aside, Fleming does give us more insights into the person of Edmund White and it is refreshing to read passages that demonstrate White's warmth and humanity and caring that often his books fail to suggest. Far from being just a flamboyant social surface person, White, as drawn by his nephew, has more than a modicum of compassion for family, for adolescence, for the sticks and stones that make us falter as we mature. So, I think this young writer bears watching. Maybe next time his misery will not be too much with us.......
Rating: 
Summary: A touching tribute
Review: A year ago I heard Edmund White say in an interview that his nephew was writing a biography of him. When I put this book on hold at the library, sight unseen, I therefore expected a traditional biography, not the memoir that it is. One could almost forget Keith Fleming's uncle is Edmund White, the renowned author and icon, and see him as merely any anonymous, loving uncle. Fleming's writing is down-to-earth, almost eerily unsentimental, and explanatory without being didactic. He doesn't omit the parts that make him look bad (or the details that cast White in a somewhat negative light). He even sounds poetic in a few spots (perhaps his uncle's influence?).I was moved by the portrayal of Uncle Ed's generosity, his humanness, and his abundant caring for a nephew who seemed by turns self-destructive, ungrateful, and more trouble and expense than he was worth. At the end Fleming writes: "Sometimes the hardest thing for a teenage boy to write is the simple truth. And if that truth involves just how green and scared you were when you came to Uncle Ed, how you fell under his spell and how you now owed everything to him..." Time and maturity have obviously given Fleming the appreciation he lacked as a teenager. Although most of us didn't endure the harrowing ordeal Fleming did while growing up, he expresses that adolescent angst vividly enough for all to relate to it. What emerges is a story of a family where an uncle's love was able to overcome the neglect and misguided attempts at childrearing of Fleming's parents. This book--a tribute to Uncle Ed--shows that White's perseverance paid off. A poignant memoir.
Rating:
Summary: A touching tribute
Review: A year ago I heard Edmund White say in an interview that his nephew was writing a biography of him. When I put this book on hold at the library, sight unseen, I therefore expected a traditional biography, not the memoir that it is. One could almost forget Keith Fleming's uncle is Edmund White, the renowned author and icon, and see him as merely any anonymous, loving uncle. Fleming's writing is down-to-earth, almost eerily unsentimental, and explanatory without being didactic. He doesn't omit the parts that make him look bad (or the details that cast White in a somewhat negative light). He even sounds poetic in a few spots (perhaps his uncle's influence?). I was moved by the portrayal of Uncle Ed's generosity, his humanness, and his abundant caring for a nephew who seemed by turns self-destructive, ungrateful, and more trouble and expense than he was worth. At the end Fleming writes: "Sometimes the hardest thing for a teenage boy to write is the simple truth. And if that truth involves just how green and scared you were when you came to Uncle Ed, how you fell under his spell and how you now owed everything to him..." Time and maturity have obviously given Fleming the appreciation he lacked as a teenager. Although most of us didn't endure the harrowing ordeal Fleming did while growing up, he expresses that adolescent angst vividly enough for all to relate to it. What emerges is a story of a family where an uncle's love was able to overcome the neglect and misguided attempts at childrearing of Fleming's parents. This book--a tribute to Uncle Ed--shows that White's perseverance paid off. A poignant memoir.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent: equal parts passion and discipline
Review: I found myself admiring the narrative structures Mr Fleming has designed for his memoir, which reads more like a good novel. He never tells us more than we want to know, yet what he does tell us always sheds light on a most unusual adolescence and family. There's a wonderful grasp of character here, including the author's own younger self. His uncle Edmund White's A Boy's Own Story has long been one of the novels I most admire, and I think what his nephew Keith Fleming has accomplished here is a new Boy's Own Story, the next generation of it. The depiction of the young Edmund White, not yet famous, is priceless, yet I think the book would stand up just as well were the Uncle Ed of the book not a famous name. The relationship between uncle and nephew is one of the most complex and fascinating connections I can remember reading. The book leaves you wanting to know what transpired next between these two.
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful!
Review: I found this memoir of Mr. Fleming's youth fascinating. It was extremely well written, vividly descriptive of his family and experiences with mother, father, psychiatrist, fellow patients, and finally, his loving uncle who rescued him from an ununderstanding world. I do not regard it as a "gay" book, but a moving description of a young man's journey through his youth, schooling, family, hospitalizations, love relationships. Anyone interested in young people especially, should find this as interesting as I did. I do recommend it.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonderful Ride
Review: I still feel under the spell of Keith Fleming's wonderful memoir, The Boy with the Thorn in his Side. I read it over the weekend in 2 sittings. The opening pages grabbed me right away -- what an eccentric, fascinating family! Whether describing his first innocent sexual adventures, or his horrifying experience as the patient of a pyschiatrist/sadist, or his touching romance with an inner-city Latina, Fleming writes so well about what it feels like to be a teenager at the mercy of circumstances. And what circumstances! The book takes us through one extreme situation after another, always described with deep feeling and great sense of style. This book is so much more than a portrait of his uncle Edmund White. I recommend it to anyone interested in love, in families, in adolescence -- in life!
Rating:
Summary: Gets to the heart
Review: I was going to buy this book as an anniversary present, but caught myself reading bits and pieces, until I had finished the whole thing. This is a well-written book that is very engaging. You laugh, cry, and wince as Fleming tells his story, and you close the book absolutely exhausted thinking about everything that happened within a relatively short time span. I recommend it for years to come.
Rating:
Summary: Well Worth Reading
Review: I've never read anything by Edmund White, because whenever I've scanned his work in a bookstore it never appealed to me. After reading Flemming's book, I am no more predisposed to read White, who comes across as looks- and sytle-consicious and as sex-obsessed as I figured him to be. While I thought it was a cheap shot of Flemming to go public with the fact that he thought his uncle was coming on to him even though White never did anything overt, I did find this little tidbit insightful in that it confirmed my sense of White's anything goes attitude that he probably could just barely keep in check when it came to his own nephew. My favorite character was Keith's evil shrink. I also liked Flemming's take on Manhattan in the 70s, especially the barrio of columbus and amsterdam avenues butting up against the more gentrified 86th Street, Central Park West, etc.
Rating:
Summary: Painful honesty intermixed with personal growth.
Review: I've read this first work by Keith Fleming several times and have shared it with friends, all of whom agree that it is intensely personal, amusing at times, and chronicles an adolescent's developement during perhaps the most difficult years, and under some very difficult and confusing circumstances. I tend to focus more on Mr. Fleming's talent as a writed/narrator of this work than I do on his uncle, Mr. White. He is indeed a colorful subject, but the subtleness which with the author connects to our own adolescent experiences is easily lost if the focus is placed on his more famous uncle than on what Keith Fleming is really trying to portray, i.e., growing up as a troubled adolescent. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in reading something real and written from the heart and soul. If you are seeking fluff, seek elsewhere. This book is for the serious minded reader, which is not to say it is obtuse, or difficult reading, but that it represents that rare work which portrays the human in all of us at our most vulnerable times.
Rating: 
Summary: Uncle Mame?
Review: Keith Fleming is a pretty good storyteller. He really makes you picture the times, places and characters in his life. Especially strong is the evil Doctor at the hospital and his wonderful uncle in New York City. (Edmund White) These characters and moments really stand out. However most of this book just rambles about and then ends with no purpose whatsoever. At the end I wondered "why did he write it" and "why did I read it?". I would not recommend this book because it just meanders and ends with no explanation. I need more of a story arc even from a biography. The other thing that puzzled me was why he would paint such a wonderful loving tribute to his uncle and then ruin it by mentioning an offhand sexual advance by his uncle. It seemed out of place never explored his feelings behind it or why it was even mentioned. It was kind of unsavory without a reason for it. Keith needed a good editor on this book and some guidance.
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