An interview with Felice Picano

by Richard Labonté

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A couple of years ago, Felice Picano's "The Book of Lies" was a well-reviewed gay best-seller, both in America and in Britain. Two years before that, he scored with "Like People in History." Before that, with "Looking Glass Lives." Before that, with the memoirs "House on the Ocean," "House on the Bay," "The Men Who Loved Me: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel," and "Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children."

More than 20 years ago, his classic thriller "The Lure" was a crossover hit in hardcover and mass market. That and his romance "Late in the Season" haven't been out of print since. He's written several other hits in the thriller genre, including "To the Seventh Power," "House of Cards," and "Eyes." His poetry book "The Deformity Lover" and his novella

"An Asian Minor: The True History of Ganymede," helped launch his own SeaHorse Press in the years after Stonewall, as did his short story collection "Slashed to Ribbons in the Name of Love."

Along the way he turned his hand to science fiction, in "Dryland's End," and he's seen three plays produced. He judged the 1999 edition of "Best Gay Erotica" from Cleis Press. And he even updated the venerable and popular "Joy of Gay Sex," along with Charles Silverstein.

Late in 2000, Picano's current publisher, Alyson, compiled his shorter fiction for the collection "The New York Years: Stories." And for spring 2001, there's "Onyx," perhaps his most personal book ever.

In a recent interview, the prolific Picano discussed his early writing years, his detour into publishing, and the idea well into which he dips his writing quill.

PlanetOut: Felice, you relocated from New York to Los Angeles a few years ago. Care to comment on the respective charms, or lack thereof, of both cities?

Felice Picano: People always say they think of me as a New Yorker. But during my childhood and adult life, I spent a lot of time outside New York. As a child, I spent summers in New England, where my parents come from, and at Long Island resorts. As a grown-up, I lived in Rome, London and Berlin. From 1975 to 1985 I lived half of every year on Fire Island, in a tiny community. In the mid 1990s, after I'd lost my partner, and most of my family and friends, I wanted out altogether. New York City had grown too noisy, crowded, and expensive to be a writer in. And it remains so whenever I'm back there -- usually on business.

I'm comfortable in L.A. I'd been coming to southern California since I was a teenager. I learned to drive here, and lived here for periods of time during the 70s and 80s doing film adaptations. I knew I'd like to live in a canyon or at the beach. I have many friends here and I find the art scene as active as I want. I get around a lot more too: driving to Palm Springs, San Diego, and Santa Barbara monthly, and to the Central Coast, the Bay Area and Sacramento several times a year. I've come to really love the West, from Arizona up to British Columbia. I had spent time in San Francisco during the 60s and 70s, but when I relocated I was looking for a less urban lifestyle. And now, in my little house high in the Hollywood Hills, I'm gardening and I discovered I have a talent for it. So while I lost an entire life I once had in Manhattan, I've managed to cobble together another life here that's quite different but OK.

PlanetOut: You've had quite a long and varied connection to gay publishing, from pioneering publisher to veteran writer. What has 2001 learned from 1971? What has it forgotten?

FP: I've kept copies of most of the Seahorse and Gay Presses of New York titles that Larry Mitchell, Terry Helbing and I published for 17 years, and they hold up pretty well. We published the first work of Dennis Cooper, Jane Chambers, Harvey Fierstein, Brad Gooch, Robert Chesley and others. We set a standard in art, design, and literary quality copied by lesbigay books ever since. We had fun, though my own writing went on hold at times because publishing others was so much work. Today, thanks to computer technology and the Internet, you can publish from anywhere. Then, you had to make a splash in New York City. But we managed to crack open national distributors and chain stores to lesbigay lit for the first time, and we were the first gay publishers to get mainstream media reviews and features for our books -- as well having national bestsellers like "Torch Song Trilogy" and "The Butch Manual." It was hard work pushing doors closed to gay literature. And people recently suggested that I open a Gay Presses of California. But I'll leave that to others. What I did learn out of the experience was that "pioneering" is best done in a state of ignorance of how much work will actually be involved, and also it's best done in a group, so you can share both disasters and triumphs.

PlanetOut: You appear to have settled in with Alyson as your publisher; they've done your last four books in America. In Britain, though, Little Brown/Abacus has taken on your work. What's the difference between how each country approaches your work, and gay literature in general?

Felice Picano: In the U.K., LittleBrown/Abacus published "Like People in History" and "The Book of Lies" very successfully, but won't do "Onyx." Because of its erotic gay material? Because they don't think if will cross into the mainstream? I'm not sure. Andrew Holleran and I often discuss how Americans still think that Britons are more intellectual and better read. In truth, publishers in Britain are far more commercial and best-seller driven than in the U.S. ... As for Alyson, ever since Delacorte, my first, then-distinguished publisher was taken over by Doubleday in 1983, I've been looking for another house to publish whatever I wrote, even if it's in a different genre and sells unevenly. So far (knock wood) that's working. The folks at Alyson are knowledgeable and professional and we like each other. I'm luckily able to deliver media attention and mainstream reviews they don't usually get. So synergy remains the best energy.

PlanetOut: Let's discuss the well from which a writer draws his words. "Like People in History," the recently republished "New York Stories," "The Book of Lies," and even "Looking Glass Lives" seem a blend of both your imagination and your experience. Is that a misreading of them?

FP: No, you've got it. The Violet Quill Club's 1978 motto was to write about the gay life around us we were witnessing or experiencing, and I often hold to that principle. A palm reader recently told me I had an adventurous life. I guess I do, so there's always plenty of material at hand. I also have an eidetic memory, which helps. When and how to present material taken from one's life is always the question. It can take decades for an incident to find its right form or for the people I knew to settle into (or come together) into being a "character." In the end, it comes down to my asking myself why a reader would be interested in what I'm writing. And also, if there's a need for the writing. If I can answer those two questions, then the story or novel or play is worth doing. And there's the need for any project to keep me interested. Since I'm scatterbrained that's not always easy.

PlanetOut: And so with "Onyx," your new novel -- on the one hand, it's compelling storytelling, at first blush pure entertainment, but by book's end there's an aching, real feel to it.

FP: Thanks. I was aiming for that particular quality. If "Onyx" feels aching and real, it's because so much of it actually happened to me -- and my partner and my friends. The affair with the younger married man, for example, lasted years. The mother from hell was all true. ... Whenever I make personal appearances, my readers tell me they value my work because it speaks to them, and one way it speaks to them is by feeling real -- they are able to tell when stories aren't real. So I never underestimate readers.

They're by no means easily fooled -- as one well-known author recently discovered. Also, gay readers seem to feel that those writers they've adopted (for lack of a better word) must become exemplars, models even, for their own lives. Even when they don't follow or openly reject our specific lives, they want to opportunity to experience them secondhand. ... Given all that, I still couldn't begin to write "Onyx" without first setting up a big distance between it and my own life. And even once I felt I'd managed to write an intriguing "story," I had to keep pulling back and checking that I and my past weren't dominating it. As a result of all that stopping and starting, the book ended up taking me three-and-a-half years to write.

PlanetOut: Lots of our literary voices have been lost, many of them writers you knew 20 and 30 years ago. Who do you miss?

FP: I most miss the works and personal acquaintance of novelist Robert Ferro and humorist David Feinberg. I miss the originality of playwrights Charles Ludlum, Alan Bowne and Jane Chambers. The accomplishments of all five suggest how much more they might have done had they lived longer. Then there is Alan Barnett, George Whitmore and John Fox, who were just hitting their stride when they died. In "Like People in History" I printed poetry by someone few had heard of, poet Paul Grady, who had just found his voice and managed a dozen solid poems before he died. Will we ever know how much we lost to AIDS and breast cancer? We're spoiled because of how many good authors are still around.

PlanetOut: And who gives you the pleasure of a good read these days?

FP: Among newer writers, I just read and liked Aldo Alvarez's stories, "Interesting Monsters" (Grey Wolf Press, November 2001) and I liked Jane Summer's "Silk Road" and Trebor Healey's poetry and prose. The Harrington Gay Men's Fiction Quarterly seems to have taken the lead among anthologies, with Thomas Long replacing the estimable Brian Bouldrey as editor. I loved Bernie Cooper's stories, "Guess Again," and Thom Gunn's poems in "Boss Cupid." I was surprised by how much I liked David Leavitt's novel "Martin Bauman."

But -- big but -- I still read and most love the classics: last year new translations of Beowulf and Ovid's "Metamorphoses," as well as Turgenev and Balzac's stories and novels (a writer I loaned a book to gushed, "Balzac is God!"). On a recent airplane trip, I read an 1856 novella by Mrs. Gaskell, titled "Half a Lifetime Ago," and was reduced to tears. It would make a great film.

PlanetOut: Compared to most of your peers, you're pretty prolific. What keeps you writing, and what's next?

FP: I don't have trust funds or big grants or a rich husband or a thick stock portfolio to support me. This is how I make my living. Also, I know a day will come when I won't want to write or be able to do so as easily or well. ...

As a child I once read a collection titled, "A World of Story." I believe that's how I see life, filled with stories -- if only I can recognize and present them. ... I've just finished putting together only my second story collection, titled "Fred in Love," containing the title novella (about a terrific cat!) and nine "true stories" that I've been writing and rewriting over the past decade. Only a few ever appeared in print. Also, I've discovered a sensational true-crime story going back to 1923 involving my own family that I've begun investigating. Perhaps for a "prequel" memoir. Somewhat off that base, over the past two decades I've written three plays, which are suddenly getting noticed again. The most produced, a one-acter titled "One O'Clock Jump," was put on at the Tennessee Williams Festival in 1999, and we're discussing a Palm Springs revival in the Fall of 2001. In fact, I'm now -- insanely -- hoping to see a production of each of my plays by a different company in a different California city, within the near future.