Almost History (Contemporary Fiction, Plume) [Paperback]

Christopher Bram (Author)

Book Description

Series: Contemporary Fiction, Plume | Publication Date: April 1, 1993

American diplomat Jim Goodall struggles with his homosexuality for three decades, walking a fine line between his public and private personas.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While earnest and sometimes insightful, Bram's effort to trace a homosexual American foreign-service officer's 35-year career in the Philippines lacks the wit and charm of his previous offerings.
Copyright 1993 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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Plume (April 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0452269660
• ISBN-13: 978-0452269668
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,896,007 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

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) (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) (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.