Looking Glass Lives

Felice Picano is known to many readers for his autobiographical writings and his novels such as Like People in History and The Lure, as well as for coauthoring The New Joy of Gay Sex. In Looking Glass Lives, Picano's strange and haunting new novel, he has produced both a ghost story and a fascinating meditation on the hold eroticism can have on our lives. Looking Glass Lives is a touching coming-of-age tale, a chilling gothic horror story, and a moving story of doomed love all rolled into one, melding together to create one of Picano's most memorable works.

Publishers Weekly

"He tells me that we are bound to each other by bonds greater and more lasting than any he has known--immortal ties. And I--fool that I am--I believe him." Immortal ties entangle lovers a century apart in Picano's (Like People in History) vaguely karmic, mercifully brief tale of love, betrayal and reincarnation. A Civil War-era love triangle between Amity Pritchard, her lover and her sister plays out to a deadly conclusion--and is then replayed in the present day when 30-year-old narrator Roger Lynch and his new wife, Karen, buy the old Pritchard house and Roger's childhood (and still childish) lover, Chas, shows up at the door, ready to wreak sexual havoc. Hampered by prose more suitable to YA romance than to adult fiction, the story lacks the emotional power of a good gothic romance, the suspense of a decent ghost story and the wit or grace to bridge the gap between the genres. Ten amateurish, coyly erotic illustrations do nothing to flesh out these wooden characters or their silly exploits d'outre tombe. Excerpted in Genre magazine; author tour. (Sept.)

Felice Picano is the author of 19 books, including the literary memoirs Ambidextrous, Men Who Loved Me, and A House on the Ocean, a House on the Bay as well as the best-selling novels Like People in History, Looking Glass Lives, The Lure, and Eyes. He is the founder of Sea Horse Press, one of the first gay publishing houses, which later merged with two other publishing houses to become the Gay Presses of New York. With Andrew Holleran, Robert Ferro, Edmund White, and George Whitmore, he founded the Violet Quill Club to promote and increase the visibility of gay authors and their works. He has edited and written for The Advocate, Blueboy, Mandate, GaysWeek, Christopher Street, and Books Editor of The New York Native and has been a culture reviewer for The Los Angeles Examiner, San Francisco Examiner, New York Native, Harvard Lesbian & Gay Review, and the Lambda Book Report. He has won the Ferro-Grumley Award for best gay novel (Like People in History) and the PEN Syndicated Fiction Award for short-story. He was a finalist for the Ernest Hemingway Award and has been nominated for three Lambda Literary Awards. A native of New York, Felice Picano now lives in Los Angeles.