“Artful vignettes from a life passed between Bohemian and cafe societies, in Italy and Spain, on a decaying American estate, on the New York piers . . . It is exquisite prose, gooey and fantastic as Italian pastry, mounds of it, piled on prodigally. Elegant plays on words abound . . . Proust, for a possible comparison, piled phrase upon phrase . . . Mr. White [is] a similar virtuoso . . . Nocturnes is a set of delicious . . . prose poems by a writer of great talent and high art."

– John Yohalem, New York Times

“[Contains] the most gorgeous evocation I have ever read of the 1970s gay male nighttown at New York’s old rotting piers, a twisted, rusting, metallic ruin of anonymous sex and unexpectedly sublime tableaus . . . an abundant, carnal and glittering place, populated by fearless, libidinal aesthetes.”

– Stacey D'Erasmo, New York Times Book Review

“[A] near perfect poetic effusion disguised as a novel, [written] in the voice of a younger man who rejects a sophisticated, well-traveled, and widely-admired older lover.”

– Stephen Barber, Gay and Lesbian Review

“There are few novels which defy reviewing. They are the ones that provide us with unique reading experiences, which become valuable additions to understanding of the world and ourselves. Edmund White’s new novel is one of these . . . Some of the finest writing to be found in recent American fiction.”

– Doris Grumbach, Washington Post Book World

“White’s disarmingly gorgeous prose everywhere works transformations . . . Banal gestures become lavishly, ravishingly beautiful, making drama of perception . . . Some of the book’s mysteries remain unsoundable, at least for me, which is a quality I prize: one can return again and again, to the inexhaustible text . . . This edition provides an opportunity for a new and better reading of White’s second novel, one that sees its importance not just as an historic record or an essential document of a crucial career, but as a psychological study of complexity and depth, and a stylistic performance of an immaculacy seldom achieved.”

– Garth Greenwell, from the Foreword

“A baroque invention of quite startling brilliance and intensity.”

– Gore Vidal