Best Friends

Unrequited love is often a spur to creativity but both Edmund White and Bethan Roberts explore this theme from a less familiar angle. Edmund White’s Jack Holmes and His Friend, set in New York, recounts the thwarted yearnings of a gay man for his heterosexual soul mate. It is also a novel about American society and changing attitudes towards sexuality. Bethan Roberts’ My Policeman, set in Brighton, describes a non-domestic ménage à trois involving a married couple and his gay lover. The story is loosely based on the life of E.M. Forster. Chaired by Shoreditch House supremo, Damian Barr.