French-born but living in America, Guy inhabits a world of surfaces and appearances. In his mid-30s but passing for 23, he is a top fashion model, strutting the catwalks of 1980s New York and Milan.‘You’re beautiful and everybody projects onto you what they’re looking for … you’re a black hole in space,’ declares Pierre-Georges, Guy’s unscrupulous agent. But even as his coffers fill and real estate portfolio expands, Guy longs for someone with whom to share his charmed life.

Guy finds plenty of people, however, with whom to share his perfect body – the loathsome but wealthy baron, the married American producer, the winsome painter, the naive farm-boy (women scarcely appear in the novel). AIDS rears its ugly head and forces Guy briefly to reflect on the vacuity of his life, but not for long.

For a novel set in the dazzling whirlwind of late-80s culture, Our Young Man does surprisingly little to paint a picture. the fashion scene is nodded to, the art and music of the time scarcely figure (save for an occasional mention of Richard Alvedon or Madonna) and politics not at all. This might matter less if the novel were a penetrating study of a flawed and superficial man, but Guy lies flatly on the page, hardly coming to life, and those around him read as little more than caricatures. Like its banal hero, Our Young Man wafts by and – unlike Edmund White’s vivid earlier novels – leaves no impression.

Reviewed by Aaron Jelbart