Almost History [Hardcover]

Christopher Bram (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 30, 1992

Jim Goodall joins the foreign service during the 1950s and is sent to the Philippines, where he observes the U.S.'s treacherous dealings with the Marcos regime, dealings that shake his belief in his government and himself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Although Bram places his fourth novel in the Philippines during the Marcos era, he delivers little more than a surface exposure to this potentially explosive setting. Beginning in the 1950s, the narrative follows the 35-year career of Jim Goodall, an idealistic American foreign service officer committed to serving his country and bolstering basic human rights. The story is filtered through his oddly codependent relationship with a tomboyish niece, who serves as muse and mirror to his experience as a "house guest of history." Goodall's own outlook is expressed in the prologue, in which he serves warning that his career was "small potatoes" and that he will "stick to the potato's-eye view." Unfortunately this makes for a rather undramatic narrative: this minor character in history neither accomplishes his goal of self-actualization nor succeeds in exposing government corruption. Concerned that acknowledgement of his homosexuality will hamper his career, Goodall never matures beyond adolescent accommodation of his needs, and he is unable to forge meaningful relationships. His fight to illuminate the atrocities of the Marcos regime has ironic consequences. That Goodall is shallow, awkward, insecure and ultimately unlikable further diminishes the book's appeal. While earnest and sometimes insightful, this novel lacks the wit and charm of Brams's previous offerings (In Memory of Angel Clare) .
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Bram has described himself as "a gay novelist . . . who tries to treat gayness as just one strand in a life that has more similarities with 'mainstream' life than dissimilarities, without denying the similarities." His latest novel provides a good example of this approach. Its protagonist happens to be a gay foreign service officer who only begins to come to terms with his sexuality when he reaches his mid-40s. But while his awakening is undeniably a significant (and sometimes a bit forced) thread within the story, it is not the main thrust. Rather, Bram is concerned with the moral and political complications inherent in diplomatic life: personal integrity versus truth and "nation al interest." The Marcos-era Philippines with its glitter, corruption, and human rights abridgements provides the ideal setting for this thought-provoking story. Without its gay thread it might even have had a shot at best-sellerdom--maybe someday this will not matter but probably not yet. Still, this is an excellent choice for most public libraries.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 409 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (April 30, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556112319
• ISBN-13: 978-1556112317
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.3 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,837,192 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complicities, December 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Almost History (Contemporary Fiction, Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

Christopher Bram is among the most intelligent novelists working today, and this is his most ambitious attempt so far at taking the gay novel out beyond the ghetto. It includes a clear-eyed indictment of American foreign policy, that addresses - and by inference links - the horrors of American militarism in Vietnam and the more insidious but no less vicious diplomatic support for the Marcos regime in the Phillipines.

The central figure, Jim Goodall, is a Washington career diplomat at once homosexual but only 'almost' gay. In the course of the novel he travels from detachment to muted acceptance of his sexuality, and from detatchment to confrontation with the war machine that employs him. Unlike the attractive gay heroes in some of Bram's novels - Hank, in 'Hold Tight', for example - Goodall is not particularly appealing. But unlike Bram's better-known bystander, the James Whale figure in his 'Father of Frankenstein', Goodall is living at points where history truly is happening, and there are no sidelines. His urgent question is whether gayness and diplomat status do keep him only 'almost' complicit with the gung-ho male-bonding military that he's actively on side with - and the answer is (almost) 'no'. So it's not a simple book with a positive-image hero, but something braver. Like a lot of great big bold novels - from 'Middlemarch' to 'Lolita' - it takes the risk of centring on a protagonist who is never fully likeable. There are parallels for this too in distinguished gay writing, and I found myself recalling Angus Wilson's wonderful 'As if By Magic', which also surveys the disasterousness of first-world intervention in third-world countries - and does so through the eyes of a man coming to terms with gay sexuality while bonded more with a girl from a younger generation of his own family than with any of the men who happen to share his bed.

Bram's fearlessness is especially apparent in several extraordinary scenes that feature Imelda Marcos as a high-camp Dickensian monster. These are black comedy encounters testing out how far camp excess is tolerable when crisis is extreme. It's in the end a novel about responsibility, asking what happens people who have been written out of history - as for so long gay people have been - once they find themselves assimilated through turning-point events. Resolution is only on the level of the personal and the intimate, and the ending makes plain the dissatisfactions which thereby persist. In short, it's a story of personal revolution achieved in lives that stay tied to a culture that blocks off change and betterment on any broader level.

Among the great pleasures of this novel are its unfaltering commitment to awareness, always evident in the quality of its writing, which is never less than fluently elegant, and which again and again manages moments of lucidity and illumination that reach out towards a better state than the characters can achieve. Hence for me its re-readabilty.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Almost Good, January 12, 2008

By 

Ford Ka (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Almost History (Paperback)

There are so many good books about the Big History (always spelled with capitals) that some writers feel the need to look for almost history (with no capitals at all). Christopher Bram made an attempt to carve a sizeable novel out of a not-so-important (from the point of view of the US) historical event and a not-so-interesting character. The result, as one might quite easily guess, is not-so-good. One can quite easily see Bram's good intensions (a non-standard gay character, a non-standard point of view etc.) but don't we all know the real value of good intensions? I am no specialist on the Philippines but sticking to home turf does him much better. An Almost Good Read in effect.

4.0 out of 5 stars Thoroughly engaging, March 14, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Almost History (Contemporary Fiction, Plume) (Mass Market Paperback)

Having interned at the State Department and knowing a bit about the Foreign Service, I find this book to be generally accurate, though at times stretching things a little. But I understand this is all done for the sake of a good fiction. And this is good fiction, thoroughly engaging and very vivid in its depictions of characters, places, and events. Even though the main character is gay, the themes challenge the minds of everyone.