Like People in History (Felice Picano, 1995)

The front cover quote from Edmund White says that Like People in History is 'the gay Gone With the Wind'. I've not read the latter, but I've seen the superb film, and if White meant that Like People is a bit of an epic I suppose he's right. I don't mean that it's a particularly long book (500 pages), just that it covers a large span of gay history. Now, a large span of gay history may not be that long - the book covers 1954 to 1991 - in the grand scheme of things, but many significant events are captured in Picano's novel, and not all of it just gay. I suppose though that Gone With the Wind covers the Civil War period in the US, another period that is not that long in the life of mankind, but significant in the last few hundred years. 

The book has a linear thread, following the narrator, Roger Sansarc, and his boyfriend as they first attend cousin Alistair Dodge's party, attend an AIDS activist rally in Greenwich Village, get arrested for hanging a banner, and ultimately try to prevent Alistair, suffering from AIDs-related illnesses, from swallowing a load of pills. This might all sound a bit heavy and worthy yet it's not. Each chapter features part of the 1991 story, and then a flash back to a significant time in Roger's life when Alistair has played a large part. In this segments of the past we follow Roger from boyhood through his blossoming sexuality, and then his homosexuality to his wonderful but ultimately doomed romance with the gorgeous Matt Loguidice. Along the way Roger ends up at Woodstock, he has affairs with women and men, he's seduced by an older British rocker, writes for a magazine, owns a book shop and comes into contact with Alistair far more often than he'd like.

Alistair is an interesting character. He's a precocious child, then a precocious adult, and he manipulates Roger in a way that he doesn't always realise until it's too late. Some of his feats of manipulation are astounding, and it's surprising that Roger ever forgives him, but everyone loves Alistair Dodge, and there are gaps in the narrative to give Roger time to forgive Alistair. As the picture of their two intertwining lives is built up it heightens the suspense in the 1991 story - Roger is the one who gave Alistair the pills he plans to use to commit suicide, then Roger has a change of heart. You never know if Roger will reach Alistair in time, and sometimes it's hard to decide whether you want him to or not. 

What saves the book from feeling worthy and full of the old gay-AIDs clichés is that Picano writes with such humour and warmth. The relationships between all of the book's characters are wonderfully defined, and I especially liked the romance between Roger and Matt, and was saddened when it didn't go to plan. The scenes when Matt is in hospital dying of The Disease are heartbreaking but never sensational or cloying. This is a book every gay man should read for it presents the history of the gay rights movement in a subtle way, you don't even realise you're learning (about US history admittedly) about Stonewall and beyond, you get sucked in by these great characters.