Men Who Loved Me [Hardcover]

Felice Picano (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This zesty latest segment of a fictional autobiography opens in the frenetic 1960s when Picano ( Ambidextrous ) discovers Europe--and his homosexuality--and ends two decades later with the first rumblings of AIDS. The narrator is a brainy bon vivant, a Casanova from Queens who travels abroad after college to find love. His grand tour is uneventful until he lands in Italy, where he falls in with a gang of mischievous Americans and is fawned upon by a famous Yugoslavian film director named Djanko. The Italian section is the most accomplished here, spiked with adventure and romance. When Picano heads back to New York to recover from a broken heart, however, the story noticeably flattens, with an endless succession of sexual conquests, parties, jobs and encounters with the famous. His cameo of the poet W. H. Auden is amusing, but much of the novel seems to detail merely cynical social climbing. The ending walks the reader through the Stonewall rebellion, which marked the beginning of the gay rights movement, and into the moment when a mysterious new disease seems to be targeting gay men--a ham-handed finish for an otherwise distinguished and humorous portrait of a vanished age.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This second installment of Picano's fictionalized autobiography (following Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children , Gay. Pr., 1985) covers a relatively brief period in the mid-1960s when the author was in his early 20s. It has two main focal points--a sojourn in Rome during which he fulfills his objective of becoming homosexual and his life as one of the Jane Street "girls" back in New York a couple of years prior to Stonewall. In part the tale of a young man's search for identity and an examination of life in a world on the verge of change, its often pretentious, self-indulgent, and gossipy tone also suggests a put-on (at least one hopes it's a put-on) of the tell-it-all tales now so popular. It is further marred by loose editing (i.e., implausible time frames, Michael York playing Tybalt and not Mercutio in Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet ) and a weak ending. Still, it has some wonderful episodes--e.g., tea with "aunty" W.H. Auden--and thus should find an audience. For popular fiction collections.
- David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 325 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition edition (November 24, 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0453007007
• ISBN-13: 978-0453007009
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,395,503 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gay love and life just before Stonewall., September 24, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Men Who Loved Me: A Memoir in the Form of a Novel (Paperback)

This second memoir by Felice Picano follows him as a bored and restless young man to Italy, where he finds both romance and adventure among the denizens of Cinecitta, the famed Italian film studio. The first half of the book chronicles his relationship with Djanko, a director. In the second half, "The Jane Street Girls," Felice has returned to New York, has landed a job at Graphique magazine, and is involved with a man who is old enough to be part of a more closeted, cautious generation.

Of the three memoirs, this one is not *as* compelling, but is still very worthwhile reading, and delivers a blow in its final pages that still has me reeling, wanting to hear more, even though there's not much more that can be said. Worth it for that alone, actually, and makes the title even more meaningful, changing it from possibly self-serving to ironic.

Preceded by Ambidextrous and followed by A House on the Ocean, A House on the Bay.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Coming of Age Tale, Italian Style, January 18, 2012

By 

Petronius (Washington DC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Men Who Loved Me (Paperback)

This book by Picano is first of all, lots of fun. Having also lived in Rome myself shortly after his time there, I can say that he captured the flavor of La Dolce Vita of that era perfectly, especially for a young adventuresome American eager to experience his gay sexuality to the max. I liked his depictions of the Via Veneto cafe society, the characterization of the maid at the film director's apartment, and the personalities of the other fun-loving ex-pats, especially the Australian hunk. The New York scenes are also good, but more for showing that Picano as a young man was truly searching how to launch his life's career as a writer. He was focused. In reading his works, I am curious how he came to be so self-accepting of being gay, and more or less "out" at a time when gays were still so generally closeted.