Almost History

by Christopher Bram

From the acclaimed author of Hold Tight and In Memory of Angel Clare comes a brilliant novel covering 35 years in the life of American diplomat Jim Goodall. Expanding his scope beyond his previous novels about gay life, Bram crafts a tale of political power, compromise, and corruption--an intimate epic about sex, family, and American foreign policy.

Genres: Fiction, Gay, LGBT, Gay Fiction

409 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Bram grew up in Kempsville, Virginia. After graduating from the College of William and Mary in 1974 (B.A. in English), he moved to New York City four years later. There, he met his lifelong partner, documentary filmmaker Draper Shreeve.

Bram's novel Father of Frankenstein, about film director James Whale, was made into the movie Gods and Monsters starring Ian McKellen and Brendan Fraser. Bill Condon adapted the screenplay and directed. Condon won an Academy Award for his adaptation.

In 2001, Bram was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 2003, he received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement. He currently resides in New York.

Reviews

[Dennis Holland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chronicling 35 years of a gay American diplomat beginning in the 1950s, this could easily be a sequel of sorts to that recent tv adaptation “Fellow Travelers”, this epic featuring torture, pool orgies in Bangkok and Imelda Marcos’ hairdresser, of course.

[Rith · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book I've ever read. Each character was so memorable in their own way and the relationship between Jim and his niece was amazing to read.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

I reacted to this book as a gay man and someone who long ago during grad school worked in South Asia with Foreign Service types. Portions of the plot grabbed my interest. But, overall, most chapters seemed implausible. During the mid-60s, there were faint stirrings of "gay liberation" in some large US cities, but Washington was still tightly closeted, especially in the State Dept. which was recovering from McCarthyism. This was a period when young would-be US diplomats were instructed not to date or over-fraternize with people in the host country. Thus I think it is unlikely Jim would have had any special friends within Foggy Bottom or an embassy for emotional or romantic connections. An affair, if one occurred, realistically would have been with someone with no ties to the government. That said, I can't imagine him having a fling with his niece's boyfriend, a student, although I concede a youthful body and hormones can be powerful magnets. Likewise, I couldn't understand why he was so drawn to his niece, Meg, except that he enjoyed playing the role of mentor.
Suspense builds after he gets reassigned to the Philippines during the Marcos regime. Some vivid mini-portraits of Imelda Marcos and her circle of courtiers point to the tight surveillance that surrounded Jim in Manila. The regime's corruption, taken for granted by the embassy, undermines his covert efforts to support reform. But the violence near the end of the book and Jim's retreat to a bland, mostly celibate life in suburban Washington struck me as "Not Even Close to Believable History."

[Karl Kraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

My fourth Bram novel -- I'm reading them in order of publication -- and easily the best of the lot. The two narrative strands, which I suppose could be pigeonholed as "the personal" and "the political", converge artfully toward the end in one of the better moral dilemmas I've encountered in fiction in the past several months' worth of reading. The manner in which the protagonist comes to terms with how to live decently as both a gay male and a representative of the American empire (hint: he never quite succeeds in either) is executed with considerable psychological depth.

Maybe I should deduct a star for the author's use of Imelda Marcos as a Force for Good -- I don't get the impression that she ever has been such except when she could glom her face onto the enterprise. Maybe it's the stereotypical gay male infatuation with larger-than-life women? I'm also annoyed that the author and/or his editor seem to think that the superlative form of "bad" is "worse" ("worse thief of all", "at its worse") and that both are sufficiently oblivious of the world of golfing to get the spelling of the brand name of the golf balls correctly (no, it's not "Titlist"). Okay, so there are no golf courses in Manhattan, but certainly in Virginia Beach? Five stars anyway; I'm feeling generous.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently, I decided to reread some of the novels that have been on my bookshelves for decades. Among these were several by Christopher Bram.

The term 'epic' is often overused, but with a personal perspective from the life of Foreign Service agent Jim Goodall, with chapter variations from the POV of his niece Meg, the entire arc of the Marcos regime in Manila, and parts of Vietnam, are seen through the perspective of an American whose idealism for democracy erodes.

With numerous up-close encounters with the Manila dictator and his infamous wife Imelda, this story charts the shifting corruption of U.S. influence in southeast Asian politics from the 1950s to the early '80s.

Goodall's closeted life is gradually cracked open through a unique array of encounters and affairs, but love remains a foreign entity for him. His once earnest values are questioned, particularly through the eyes of his niece and Goodall's affair with her duplicitous boyfriend. The strange and secretive world of Washington D.C. politics and global events become uniquely personal and effecting.

[Vic Marriott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great journey. Captivated me in the first page and never let me go. Jim Goodall is an all too human career diplomat. Meg is his all too intellectual niece. Their stories are surprisingly entangled with that of the Philippines and Imelda Marcos.

[Blank · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm a huge CB fan, but this one let me down. Written in the early 1990's, it's amazing how dated it feels, both in language and story. Go directly to Dr. August and Exiles - CB's best fiction.