The Best-Kept Boy in the World: The Life and Loves of Denny Fouts by Arthur Vanderbilt

Category: 50 Books

bestkeptboy

Is there anything better than a dishy biography? Probably not.

This gossipy bio tells about the life of Denham Fouts, a young man from Florida who was “kept” by several men, and palled around Europe with well-to-do society guys and even the future king of Greece as well as with some very famous authors like Christopher Isherwood and Gore Vidal. Most of the book is about Denny in the lives of the famous authors, Isherwood, Vidal, and Capote. I think it’s because the people who wrote about him the most were the authors who hung out with him. It was hard to believe that ALL the men were so infatuated with him for so long, because it seemed to me he was actually really boring and slept all day only to wake up at night to smoke opium and go out to dinner. I never really understood what was so appealing about him. But it was fascinating that the authors were so enamored of him that even though some of them (Capote) found him frustrating, they ALL wrote him into their books at least once.

Denny Fouts was one charming young man, but it seems that his life, although interesting as hell, was quite hollow.

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