From Amazon.com
Playful, ambitious, and minutely plotted, Felice Picano's follow-up to his crossover success,
Like People in History, will appeal to his increasing readership in much the same way as a box of Belgian chocolates, a self-indulgent but harmless extravagance. Ross Ohrenstedt, a resourceful and well-read young academic teaching a single summer literature course at UCLA, manages to get permission to examine and catalog the papers of Damon Von Slyke, a member of the infamous Purple Circle of gay writers active in the 1960s and 1970s (and roughly modeled on Picano's own literary group, the Violet Quill Club, which includes Andrew Holleran and Edmund White). Piecing together the various drafts of Von Slyke's many books, and trying to identify the handwriting in the margins, Ross eventually stumbles on a fascinating manuscript by an unknown writer--a man virtually erased from literary history--who seems to have been intimately connected to all the members of the Purple Circle. Picano's baroque eye for detail and his invariably rich and luscious male characters (most of whom speak in complete, highly articulate sentences that would put Gore Vidal to shame) set the sometimes silly, but no less enjoyable, tone for this well-paced academic mystery.
--Regina Marler
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Publishers Weekly
Things are not what they seem in Picano's (Like People in History) novel of academic intrigue. In the early 21st century, Ross Ohrenstedt is an ambitious assistant professor at UCLA, researching the work of the legendary literary salon the Purple Circle (closely resembling the Violet Quill, a group Picano was involved in that included Edmund White, among others) for his doctoral thesis. While cataloguing the work of a Circle member, Ohrenstedt uncovers a mysterious manuscript that promises to be an academic breakthrough, and begins an increasingly obsessive quest to validate its source. New uncredited documents appear, and Ohrenstedt begins piecing together the life of their suspected author, the previously unrecognized Len SpurgeonAan enigmatic character with seemingly far-reaching influence over the Purple Circle members and their work. Self-consciously evoking Henry James, this tragicomedy of polite society is impressive in its thoroughly imagined detail, although sometimes gratuitous in its lavish descriptions of settings. With individual chapters focusing on various Purple Circle members, Picano is successful in his gossipy recreation of the group of gay literary innovators. In depicting the near future, his amusing assumptions demonstrate a keen tab on trends and the possible new technologies ahead. The surprises at the end keep the reader's head spinning. (Nov.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
