Nous etions l'histoire en marche

by Felice Picano

Réalité dans les faits, profondeur dans les sentiments et "parler vrai" sont les maîtres-mots pour qualifier cet ouvrage. En voyant ce pavé, on pourrait s'attendre à une apologie du mode de vie des Gays, avec toute sa noirceur et ses turpitudes. Mais il n'en est rien. Détaillé en six livres, vous parcourez l'ouvrage avec légèreté. Les flash-back se succèdent. La vie de deux cousins (au second degré) se mêle et se démêle, au gré des grandes étapes de la vie des Gays dans notre société. Dans cette nouvelle-fleuve, avec en toile de fond, le SIDA, Act-Up et la lutte pour les soins, Felice Picano réussit parfaitement à faire vivre le lecteur dans la peau de Rog, le personnage central. Un réel plaidoyer pour le droit à vivre...

Genres: LGBT, Fiction, Gay, Queer, Historical Fiction, Gay Fiction, Historical

697 pages, Paperback

First published July 3, 1995

About the author

Felice Anthony Picano was an American writer, publisher and critic who encouraged the development of gay literature in the United States. His work is documented in many sources.

Reviews

[LenaRibka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audible


This book is magnificent.

A gem.

Unforgettable. Incredible. Provoking.


Like People in History covers the 1950s, the 1960s, the 1970s, the 1980s and the very beginning of the 1990s, probably the most significant and crucial years in the history of gay movement.

This book is often termed as a gay male epic. I have to admit, that this + the title was also(unfortunately) the main reason, why I waited so long with reading it: I was afraid that this book would be too documentary and therefore maybe flat and free of emotions, written in a non-fictional style - I’m not a big fan of non-fictional books.

How I was wrong!..

At this point I have to express my sincere gratitude to Ethan Sawyer, an audio book narrator. Because hadn’t I listened to a sample on Audible, Like People in History would have been still waited to be discovered by me. But I did! And I was immediately drew into the story, literally, from the first syllable. Of course, the voice and narrating is nothing without a proper content, but I just want to emphasize what an excellent job Ethan Sawyer did.

The story opens in New York in 1991, in our days, what of course is relative. This book- I couldn’t believe it, but it is true-was published in 1996! Roger Sansarc, a first person narrator, a well know editor, writer, university professor and gay rights activist, together with his young lover Wally gets ready for a 45th -birthday party of his cousin Alistair Dodge, who is suffering from AIDS.
Soon we’ll find out that a birthday present for Alistair that Roger PROMISED to give him is the sixty pills with which Alistair fully intends to end his life tonight, when the last guest is gone.

This event brings all memories back, in the 1954, the year when Alistair and Roger met the first time, and the readers will be taken on a fascinating journey through decades, from their childhood in the early 50s, through the Vietnam War's period, the Stonewall era, the AIDS epidemic, through Woodstock, LA, Chelsea, San Francisco, Fire Island, and Manhattan.

Like People in History is a portrait of gay America during 4 decades, but it doesn’t force you into historical facts, it shows you this period of time from the perspective of our narrator Roger, this book is in the first place the story of two cousins, Roger and Alistair.
Their relationship is complicated and their encounters are always fateful. For both.

This book is an interesting documentary tracking of a gay American history, but it is not about history, the history here is just a background of Roger’s and Alistair’s lives. Like People in History is in the first place an excellent written and deeply touching tale about friendship, relationships, bonds, betrayals, commitments, obligations, sex and LOVE.
Love that we can probably experience only once in our life. If at all.

Despite of dramatic events, this book is not depressing, it made me laugh and cry and laugh and cry again. The writing style is wonderfully flowing. The author has found a very entertaining way to interwove the past events with the present days.

Felice Picano wrote an outstanding novel in amazingly intense, emotional and incredibly beautiful way. I could not put it down. I.LOVE EVERYTHING.

I listened to an audio book, then I read what I had listened to and vice versa. I can’t remember when I did something like this before. I became addictive with Roger's story.


IF you enjoy and appreciate gay fiction, please, read it.

I can’t recommend it highly enough.





This book is magnificent.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Though published over 10 years ago, Like People In History is one of my favorite books by Felice Picano; I've read the book three times now during that time. The friendship, deep bond and admiration Roger and Alistair have for each other friendship is palbable. I'm sure many boys will be reminded of similar friends they grew up with, some harboring secret crushes. At times funny, sexy, tragic and sad, Like People In History is a must-read for any gay man and those looking for a story that defines the close relationship of best friends better than most.

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Felice Picano’s "Like People in History" is the story of 2nd cousins Roger and Alistair who first meet in 1954 and we follow their lives through various moments (from Roger's point of view) between 1954 to 1991 when one of them tragically dies.

I enjoyed parts of it and hated parts of it, and I absolutely loathed the character of Alistair who spends his whole life manipulating and bullying everyone he meets, only to play the victim when things don’t go his way. I will admit, there are some genuinely funny and touching moments throughout, and the bits set in 1991 around the Act Up movement are really interesting, unfortunately I won’t remember them, I will only remember Alistair being a twat.

3 stars. The back of my books says “The Gay Gone With The Wind”, but there is no big daddy.

[Alona · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow!
I loved it so much!
It was not love at first sight I must say, it took me a while to get into it and invest my feelings, but once there, at around 30%, it was impossible to put down and I just dove into this epic story.
And, like in any epic story, it is full of love, hurt, sadness and beauty.
Especially intense during some parts of the story, considering it is a gay man’s life story starting in the 20 century’s 50’s-90’s, including the HIV/AIDS horrors of the 80’s.

***This book reminded me of another book (or maybe books) that I read, but I can’t put my finger at which one/s it was. Maybe someone who read it might help... (Lena?)

Thank you Lena for another brilliant recommendation ❤️

[George Ilsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave me an excuse to meet the author!

A sweeping view of the personal which intersects with famous historical events in the US. Immensely readable.

2025 update: This author died earlier this year.

[Jean Marie Angelo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was pulled in at the opening and I cried at the ending. My issue is with everything in between. The author has some wondeful passages, but then hits on spots that could have used better editing. He builds a great duality with two cousins — each gay — who live though four decades of coming out, competing with each other, and ultimately caring for each other. Problem is, the writing is uneven and, at times, sexist and racist. There are comments and actions that sometimes don't fit with the characters he has created. Too, this mostly is the story of priviledged, wealthy, well-educated, thin, attrative, white, gay guys. They just happened to have the money to live in all the upper crust gay communities of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Would it were we could all have roamed so leisurely from Chelsea, San Francisco, Fire Island, and Manhattan, during these years, mingling with all the right people and not worrying about how to pay the bills.

[Alvaro Perez-Quintero · Rating 1 out of 5]

Insufferable. If you have the patience to have a name-dropping narcissist tell you his life story with excruciating self-aggrandizing minutiae you might enjoy this book. If you enjoy esoteric descriptions of random things irrelevant to the plot you might enjoy this book. Gave me headache from rolling my eyes. An example of the ridiculous writing: "His facial features so perfectly Mayan he might have been any of a hundred sacrificial victims pictogramed on ruined temples vine-encrusted for centuries within the miasmas of the Yucatan"

[Mark Kwesi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another masterpiece.

[Dennis Holland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epic and grand. A chronicle of gay life and history spanning monumental decades of change and movement. It centers on two cousins whose lives and lovers intersect—influencing and shaping one another’s evolution and identity. Occasionally, I was reminded of the Zelig character and his amusing ability to appear inconspicuously in all sorts of situations. More often I was reminded of all the stories of a generation lost.

[Daniel Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover blurb describes how each of the two main characters – Roger Sansarc, and his second cousin, Alistair Dodge – discover their own "unique - and uniquely gay - identity". Through the process of following the relationship of these characters across four decades, it has helped me dust off the glitter on the faded red sequined hot pants of my own gay identity.

The two first meet as nine-year-old boys and Alistair seems to have everything that the "ordinary" Rog could want. Alistair is a manipulative schemer and yet each time they meet, it is Alistair who covets the life and chattel of Roger's.

The book falls neatly alongside the great gay writers Paul Monette and Edmund White, and something of Patricia Nell Warren. Before reading it, I'd let my once proud gay identity fall aside and instead I'd become a chameleon, shifting my identity to suit my circumstances – who I was with and what they expected from me – making me friends with everybody but intimate with none.

Through the tears of the last chapter, my pride in myself - who I am, my appearance, my writing, my work ethic - have all been reignited. It takes a skilled writer to produce a book that produces this kind of change.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found Like People in History a wildly uneven book, veering as it did from a mildly trashy “beach read” to a more serious attempt at gay literary fiction, with neither part being convincing or very good. The story begins in the 50’s, threading throughout its narrative the Vietnam War, Stonewall, the wild post-liberation 70’s scene of Fire Island et al, the devastation of AIDS in the 80’s, and ending in the early 90’s while the crisis was still raging. Picano centers the story on two cousins, the flamboyant, pretentious & ruthless Alistair, and Roger, his more straight-laced relative, who narrates. A major problem is that Alistair comes across as a runaway from campy old television shows like Dynasty and Dallas and Roger is an exceptionally unsympathetic, thick-headed, annoying hero. The third major character, Michael (who is naturally as unbelievably, breathtakingly handsome as love interests in these sorts of books always are) might well have been a more compelling character to center upon but remained rather shallowly presented. Some seriously bad dialogue didn’t help matters, nor did the book’s over-generous length. Despite my bitching, there were moments when Picano’s sincere attempt to write an elegiac history of modern gay life shines through, with some passages of genuine lyricism. I think the author knew the book he wanted to write but wasn’t quite sure in the end which way to tell it. A disappointment.

[Tim Power · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Didn’t want this one to end.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a memoir starting with main characters Rog and Alastair, cousins, as preteens in the 50s, through the craziness of the '60s—Viet Nam, even Woodstock, then the wide-open sexuality and liberation of the 70's and the loses and fear from the AIDS crises of the 80's. and early 90's. If you lived through these years, as I did, you will likely be moved by the memories. I wonder what happened to Roger (and Wally) beyond the tellings of the novel.

The main characters are complex and developed to the point of becoming friends with minor characters easily recognized. You have met these stereotypes. The story, Rod's life, is interesting and well told with a good bit of humor as well as drama. Picano's prose flows, is an easy read if you know the slang of the various periods, types and classes.

For me this is an amazing book. The protagonist, Rog, was born the same year as I and we followed similar courses till about 1970. My life became mundane, married, kids, house... Rog became a player in the LGBT world, certainly influenced by his wealthy cousin Alistair who introduced him to powerful people as well as his own leanings and personality. I could have had that kind of life; I knew what I needed to do and had ins to those I could climb. I played with it a bit, but chose a peaceful, private life in the woods with a 38 year 'marriage' with Christopher. I'm satisfied. So was Roger.

And I learned a great new word: Reify - to make an abstraction real, physical, touchable...

9 of 10 stars

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the best gay novels ever written!

[Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptionnal.

[KatieMc · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love an epic family saga, even when family doesn't fit the nuclear husband/wife/2.4 child mold. In this official family ties were mostly limited to 2nd cousins, but sometimes it's the family you make that's most important. That is especially true for the gay community going through the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and 90s.

I'm not especially fond of the title of this book as it seems to misdirect your attention to the notorious in history. I'm not in charge of book titles, so this will remain as-is. If you want rich characters, a strong sense of history and a story line that is well constructed and poetic in its craft, this is a highly recommended read/listen.

Many thanks to my reading patronis Lena for another great recommendation.

2017 reading challenge checks the box for 33. A book set in two different time periods . Well more than 2, but mostly 2.

[Adam O'Leary · Rating 2 out of 5]

Predictable high camp with clumsy prose and an irritating fascination with name-dropping luxury goods and brands, but incorporating a broad sweep of 20th century gay history and some touching scenes of how HIV/AIDS affected the gay community.

[John Treat · Rating 4 out of 5]

This may be Picano's best. It takes some patience to get through, especially if you're not charmed by opera in San Francisco or drugs on Fire Island. But the fate of these gay men --Roger, Alistair and Matt-- is epic. A classic of what was.

[Carlos Mock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like People in History by Felice Picano

I just finished reading Felice Picano's Like People in history for the fifth time and I'm happy to report the book withstands the passage of time. i found it as relevant today as when I first read it in the late 90's.

The book takes place in 1991, when Roger Sansarc and his current HIV positive lover and ACT UP activist Wally are on the way to a demonstration at Gracie Mansion. On their way, the duo makes a detour to Rogers's dying cousin, Alistair Dodge, to deliver 60 Tuinals so Alistair can kill himself. Wally and Roger argue as to the merits of ending the life of a dying AIDS patient, so Roger recounts his anecdotes of his relationship with Alistair.

The book is divided into five sections, each one starts with the present and then goes back to 1954, 1961, 1969, 1974, and 1985. In each section we not only get a pertinent piece of the relationship between Roger and Alistair, but also the history of the GLBT community at the time.

Narrated beautifully from Roger's first person point of view, we meet the cousins in 1954, as Alistair's parents are getting a divorce. It is clear from the beginning that Alistair is a charismatic flamboyant person who easily takes over Roger's world and teaches his cousin a thing or two about how things work: "Well, just remember this, Cuz. Schmucks like that will come and go in your life. They don't mean a thing. I'm the one who counts. I'm the one you're going to have to face and deal with. Because I'm the one who's going to be around for a long, long time."

In 1961, we deal with Roger's trip to visit his cousin in Los Angeles and Roger's dealings with his sexuality. The big theme of the 60's was coming out.

In 1974, we deal with Roger's trip to Provincetown and his stent at the Pozzuoli bookstore. After reading nights at Rizzoli, Mr. Picano's newest non-fiction novel, it's easy to see where he got the material. Here is when Roger falls in love with Matt Loguidice, his first true love.

In 1979, the action shifts to Fire Island, The Pines and Roger's relationship with Matt Loguidice develops into an open relationship and the book ends with Alistair stealing Matt away from Roger. "What if Stonewall hadn't happened? Would we all be zipping around and hiding like those poor fifties queens? Daring our jobs, our lives, to be ourselves, to even protest?" "We've been the first generation of gays to force ourselves or to be forced out of the closet. We had to experience the traumas of coming out, and making the gay movement happen, not to mention the more general trauma of getting through the roller coaster of the late sixties...."

In 1984, Roger finds out Matt is sick, and both he and Alistair help Matt cope with his AIDS disease and gently help him die - which brings us back to 1991 and Wally and Roger helping Alistair die. "Golden lads, that's what Haussman called the huge promising generation of young Brits mowed down in the First World War." "Nature is usually so tightfisted with what it provides. So very prudent how it husbands its resources. Why would Nature go to the trouble to create so much luxuriance in what after all was a group of nonreproductive creatures? Why create such an extraordinary generation of beautiful, talented, quickly intelligent men, and then why let them all die so rapidly, one after the other?"

Knowing Felice, the book deals a lot with his Survivor's remorse: "My doom was of another kind. Perhaps survival was to be my doom." "Who's left? How few of us? Why bother to leave any of us? Why not just wipe the slate clean and admit it was a mistake?"

To answer Felice and my own survival's remorse, we're hear to remind everyone of what can happen if we don't keep watch. We're here to remind the young homosexuals who are working so hard on their wedding plans that a lot went on so that they could be accepted by society. Lots of lives were lost and lots of hard work occurred so that they can have a normal life. i just hope people continue to read this novel so that we don't forget....

[Michael Belcher · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5/5 — “Like People in History” is, in nearly every respect, so brilliant as to warrant suspicion: how is this not the gay epic on everyone’s reading list; the series adaptation shining in Ryan Murphy’s icy blues? Equal parts intricate drama, sex-positive romp, and unexpected tearjerker, with the occasional flash and fisticuffs of an action thriller, even the expressly titillating sections of Picano’s work have something thoughtful to underscore about sexual, social, or international politics, and the characters are so magnetic they‘d stick to the fridge. The innumerable standouts are headlined by Alistair, one of the greatest villains in fiction, particularly due to his complex charms and tantalizing flashes of humanity amid his many unforgivable choices. Part of the author’s ability to avoid sentimentality, even in the sections detailing the AIDS crisis, the sign of a realist who, as Picano did, lived through both the sparkle and the scourge and does not require the crutch of a treacly or overly moralistic treatment.

This extraordinary achievement stumbles in only a few areas. For one, the gay male cast, though distinct in key ways, mostly share a similar verbal patter: sassed up, pop-culture-spewing dramatists who celebrate outsized femininity in their cultural references and attitude but scorn womanhood in their disses—the protagonist and his boyfriend reserving the epithet “White Woman” for the man they seem to like least (though, it’s true, “White Lady” can mean a type of ghost) and women often turned into one-dimensional oddities, hysterics, or antagonists. While the men—save “wonderful” Calvin, “chubby and balding and happy”—can feel like a droning role call of “smooth, tanned, muscled, shirtless torsos,” “washboard abs,” and other sundry beauties, unkindnesses thrown at most anyone short of a hard, hung Adonis. In terms of style, at times the whip-snapping prose is so clever, so dense with references, as to be obtuse. But then Picano will ease up, allow the sentences their breathing room, and the exquisite, poetic precision of his writing takes hold. And you’re seduced once more. Willing to forget anything one might find irksome (my peeves listed here simply to give this masterpiece a thorough assessment). Brought through a mind-boggling array of tautly handled scenarios to a final 50 pages that could rival anything in the classic canon when it comes to satisfying—and achingly emotional—closure.

What a wonder.

[josquin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I stopped reading this book on page 457 (or was it 447?) due to a lack of interest. That said, I don't regret reading the previous 456 (446) pages. It was a good book, as books go, and an ambitious one. But a problem with the sweeping novel can be sweeping the characters away, which is what happened hear. There are elements of a character study, but no character, and alas!, is probed. There's action! But the action is sporadic and, if anyone's read E.M. Forester's Aspects of the Novel, amounts to the difference between story and plot. Story being, "What happens next!?" and plot being, "So that's how it happens." Roughly. There are attempts at a craftsmanship that would elevate the events of the narrative above only succession, and the novel is structured, but indifferently so. But, despite characters who were failed and an only passable logic to it, it was a good book most of the way through, largely due to value as a collection of, at very least, always interesting descriptions of gay life on either coast, from the 50s through the 90s. Mostly always interesting. The dialogue can be inscrutable.

[Callum Morris-Horne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25.

An epic, gay, trans-American, transhistorical saga, alternating between two timelines and centring upon the cousinly relationship between the protagonist, Roger, and the mincing, meddlesome Alistair; their romantic entanglements; their mid-century coming-of-ages/coming-out-the-closets, and their coming to terms with the widespread tragedy of the AIDS epidemic in the late 80s/early 90s. This is, for better or worse, a time capsule: I liked the catty humour, the campiness, and the Polaroids of gay culture it captures and preserves, but it sometimes feels dated and hasn’t aged well with its casual racism, etc. It also could have been a couple of hundred pages shorter and sags considerably in the middle. Indeed, had I not been listening passively on my commute, I might have lost patience all together. That being said, I found parts of the novel very moving and beautifully written (when not overwritten), and it reminded me of both Rechy’s ‘City of Night’ and Kramer’s ‘The Normal Heart’ in the way it explores queer radicalism, activism and the relationship between the political and the personal.

[Jes · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book would've really benefited from a good editor, it was still a pretty enjoyable read. A big, sprawling, campy retelling of American history from the early 1960s through the 1980s from the perspective of a young gay writer. I'd recommend it less for its craft and more as an archive of (mostly white, mostly male) gay social life. The frame narrative is confusing and unnecessary, but the lengthy flashback sections give a great sense of the vibrancy of gay society in New York, especially in the 70s. The ending didn't leave me feeling gutted like novels about AIDS usually do, but it did convey something of the enormity of losing an entire generation over the course of a decade. I also think "Like People in History" is just a beautiful way of describing the book's project (which would have surely been much more radical at the time of publication): telling the story of a lost generation *as* history, rather than simply as a gap in the record.

[Michael Reed · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the late '70s early '80s when HIV/AIDS began to destroy much of a whole generation of us.
It was described as the Gay Gone With The Wind. That, however, is a big challenge which I think it fell far short of. But, it doesn't have to be GWTW to be good.
I enjoyed the first 2/3rds or so until everyone was doing everyone else on Fire Island including the protagonist...relationships notwithstanding. Having never desired anything but monogamy during my few romantic involvements and perhaps being something of a prude in this regard, I began to feel distain for the whole bunch and decided I might have been wasting my time.
However, close to the end, Picano redeems the book in an incredible, unbelievably moving way...and then includes a couple of added pleasant eventualities.

[Derek Gover · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another gay history published as fiction but covering a significant period of US Gay history. This book follows the lives of two cousins and the people they meet during their lives. It covers the period from their childhood in the early 50s through the stonewall era and the onset of AIDS and deals with the love/hate relationship of the two vastly different main characters..Again a book worth reading because it is good fiction but also because of its insight into the era

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. I don’t think it necessarily needed to be over 500 pages and a lot of the opera dialogue and even some of the pop culture references (before my time) went over my head, yet I still enjoyed these characters and found myself wanting to know them all.

The writing is definitely of its time but I can see why many say this is a queer must read.

[Chris Hooper · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you were too young to live it, read it. An amazing book

[Justin Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve ever read. An incredibly well told story spanning a time period of seismic changes in queer history and culture at large. I’ve read very few novels that so seamlessly blend storytelling from past and present perspectives without losing momentum in either of the narratives. The specificity with which Felice Picano recalls these pivotal cultural moments is unlike anything I’ve experienced and is given further gravitas due to how few surviving witnesses we have of these times. It can’t be easy to balance writing about the indulgence of pre-AIDS epidemic gay life with the devastating knowledge of what was to come, but through Picano’s words we gain some insight into the complex, beautiful lives of these people without succumbing to either a revisionist history or a darkened, fatalist view.

[Spence · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5/5

I wanted very badly to like this, but the endless long-windedness exhausted me further the more it happened. The best example I can think of here is the party (don't ask me what the party was for — I can't fuckin' remember) where they all go in drag: we spent almost two pages getting descriptions and work details about background characters that we have never seen before and will never see again.

There are moments of greatness in this book — the Woodstock section was great; the early meetings between Alistair and Roger were so engaging; most of the Stuff with Matt is compelling — but I really don't know that all the fluff in between is worth it.

[Paula´s Brief Review · Rating 5 out of 5]

Increíble y maravilloso libro con una historia que abarca casi 40 años dando vida de nuevo a varios de los acontecimientos básicos de la historia Gay en USA del pasado siglo (realmente casi consigue que te veas allí) pero sin dramatismo y a la vez que relata los hechos aplica siempre un tono cómico, incluso en los más perturbadores.
Lo dejo en 4.5* porque hay muchas referencias culturales a actores/actrices, pintores, cantantes de opera, directores de orquesta, fotógrafos..... que quedan a veces muy lejos en el tiempo y muchos de ellos son totalmente desconocidos para nosotros (hay que tener en cuenta que el libro tiene ya 25 años)